He is both an opera and theatre man, both an artist and cultural institution director; Richard Brunel was appointed as the Lyon Opera general and artistic director in September 2021.

He studied acting at the École de la Comédie de Saint-Étienne. In 1993, he and his peers founded the Compagnie Anonyme, of which he became the director in 1995. The company, established in the French region of Rhône-Alpes, settled for a residency at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Oullins from 1999 to 2002. Brunel also worked as an actor and singer for Pierre Barat’s Atelier lyrique du Rhin de Colmar and honed his directing skills in the Nomadic Section of the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique de Paris, with classes taught by Patrice Chéreau, Alain Françon, Krystian Lupa, Peter Stein and Bob Wilson, and at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. From 2004 to 2007, he was an Associate Artist of the Théâtre de la Manufacture in Nancy, a National Drama Centre (CDN), and was the director of the Comédie de Valence (the Drôme-Ardèche CDN) from 2010 and 2019.

He directed repertoire pieces (Labiche, Bulgakov, Brecht, Witkiewicz, Gombrowicz, Tourneur, Feydeau, Ibsen), contemporary works (Sales, Handke, Harris, Balazuc, Slimani, Sedira), and adaptations of short stories (Kafka, Maupassant), correspondance (Sénèque, Pasolini, Proust, Truffaut), philosophy works (Gramsci, Deleuze), poetry (Blanchot, Genet, Artaud, Guibert), or science works (Sacks). His productions include Bruckner’s Criminals in 2011, for which he was awarded the Prix Georges-Lerminier du Syndicat de la Critique, Marivaux’s La Dispute (2014), Koltès’ Roberto Zucco (2016), Christine Angot’s Dîner en ville (2017), Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic (2018), and Nina Bouraoui’s Hostages (2019).

For his first time directing opera, he chose Der Jasager by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, performed in 2006 at the Lyon Opera, followed by In the Penal Colony by Philip Glass (2009), Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis (2012) and Zemlinsky’s Der Kreidekreis (2018). For other stages, he directed Haydn’s Deceit Outwitted and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence), Britten’s Albert Herring (Opéra Comique, Rouen, and Capitole de Toulouse, 2009), L'elisir d'amore by Donizetti (Lille and on tour in five French opera houses, 2011), Re Orso by Marco Stroppa (Opéra Comique and La Monnaie, 2012), Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites (Stadttheater Klagenfurt, 2015), The Troubadour by Verdi (Lille), Beatrice and Benedict by Berlioz (La Monnaie), Verdi’s La traviata (Stadttheater Klagenfurt) in 2017 and Rigoletto (Nancy Opera, 2021 and Rouen Opera, 2022), Shirine by Thierry Escaich (Lyon Opera, 2022), Maeterlinck and Debussy’s Mélisande (Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, 2023) and Zylan won't sing anymore by Diana Soh (travelling opera).

He wrote the libretto for Philippe Boesmans’s On purge bébé!. This Feydeau adaptation, which premiered in 2022 at La Monnaie, won the Prix Claude-Rostand du Syndicat professionnel de la Critique, an award for the best operas coproduced in Europe and outside the Paris Region.

He is to direct Charles Lecoq’s Madame Angot's Daughter (Opéra Comique, 2023), Hostages, an adaptation of Nina Bouraoui’s novel, composer Sebastian Rivas’ latest piece (2024), and The Makropoulos Affair by Leoš Janáček (Lyon Opera, 2024). In 2014, he was awarded the grade of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.