During his singing career as a baritone, Benoît De Leersnyder had the opportunity to work with directors such as Ronny Lauwers, Willy Decker, Christof Loy, Guy Joosten, Waut Koeken, Deborah Warner et Keith Warner. These were artistic encounters that inspired him to pursue his own passion for directing.   

Operastudio Vlaanderen (IOA) asked him to work out staging for such song productions as Mélodies (Georges Bizet), Die Winterrreise (Franz Schubert) and Entbehren sollst du, sollst entbehren (Hugo Wolf), in addition to the baroque production Grido d'Amore! (Giovanni Battista Bononcini and Georg Friedrich Handel) and Eine Zauberflöte, after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. By the same composer, he realised Cosi fan tutte with Bang-up! Opera. Lorenzo Da Ponte then took centre stage in the production Heart 2 Get! for Opera Vlaanderen, where he also created the children's opera Babel in collaboration with I Solisti del Vento.  

For De Munt / La Monnaie in Brussels, he directed The Brussels Requiem, Push as well as recent Solar, community projects with music by Howard Moody.   

On the international stages, Benoît De Leersnyder staged La Princesse arabe (Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga) for l'Opéra National du Rhin and the Saarländische Staatstheater, Hänsel und Gretel (Engelbert Humperdinck) at the Junge Kammeroper Köln and The Merry Widow (Franz Lehar) in Thailand.  

Several directors such as Guy Cassiers, Laurent Pelly, Michael Hanneke and Ivo Van Hove call on Benoît De Leersnyder as directorial assistant. He handled the revival of Laurent Pelly's Cendrillon (Jules Massenet) for l'Opéra de Lille, La Monnaie / De Munt in Brussels and Lyric Opera of Chicago, as well as Le Coq d'Or (Rimsky Korsakov) for Teatro Real, Madrid.  

For Vox Luminis, he created the mise en espace of Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo (Emilio de'Cavalieri) for performances at De Bijloke, Flagey and Teatro Real, Madrid.   

Together with René Jacobs, he elaborated semi concert performances for Cosi fan tutte (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), Orpheus (Georg Phillip Telemann), Der Freischütz (Carl Maria von Weber) and L'Orfeo (Claudio Monteverdi).   

Benoît De Leersnyder teaches Musical Theatrical Training and Audition Practice at KASK & Conservatorium, Ghent.