MARC CALLAHAN
OPERA DIRECTOR
Brilliant.
Jaw-dropping invention.
Riotously funny.
Wildly inventive.
At a glance...
Award-winning stage director Marc Callahan directs for Opera Las Vegas, the Miami Music Festival, Lyric Opera of Orange County, and Opera Chapman, with associate and assistant credits at the Royal Opera House, the Aldeburgh and Holland Festivals, Scottish Opera, the Théâtre du Châtelet, and the Théâtre du Capitole. He is Director of Opera Chapman and the Robert and Norma Lineberger Endowed Chair in Music at Chapman University.
Current and upcoming work includes Blood on the Dining Room Floor at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he is the 2027 Kulas Foundation Visiting Artist; L’italiana in Algeri, marking his fourth consecutive season with Opera Las Vegas; and Orpheus in the Underworld for Opera Chapman. Recent productions include Le nozze di Figaro and Again and Again and Again for Opera Las Vegas, Maya and the Magic Ring for Lyric Opera of Orange County, Rusalka for Opera Chapman and the Miami Music Festival, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which received First Prize in the National Opera Association Opera Production Competition in 2025.
His productions have received ten National Opera Association awards since 2017, including First Prizes for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Ordo Virtutum, and Der Jasager. He is a three-time recipient of the Charles Nelson Reilly Prize in stage direction. A 2026 Japan Foundation Research Fellow, Callahan has trained in Nō since 2018 and Nihon Buyō since 2023, work that informs an ongoing body of intercultural staging.
Brilliant production. Winning realization.
“Director Marc Callahan turned the unconventional venue into an asset, devising a brilliant production of remarkable dramatic intimacy… this was a winning realization of one of the monuments from the cradle of operatic theater.”
L'incoronazione di Poppea \ South Florida Classical Review