Lotfi Mansouri

Lotfollah "Lotfi" Mansouri (15 June 1929 – 30 August 2013) was an Iranian-born opera director and manager. He was an opera director from about 1960 onwards, and is best known for being the General Director of the Canadian Opera Company and of the San Francisco Opera from 1988 through 2001. In 1992 he became a ''Chevalier'' of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the subject of a 1998 biography.

He introduced opera surtitles—projected subtitles above the stage that allow the audience to follow the libretto during the performance of an opera. Provided by Wikipedia