Maxine Braham

Maxine Braham now works as both choreographer and director in opera and theatre following a successful international dance career.
Her choreography and movement direction credits includes the operas Tannhäuser (Covent Garden, production by Tim Albery), Peter Grimes (English National Opera, production by David Alden, recipient of The London South Bank Best Opera Award), Otello (Dallas Grand Opera, production by Tim Albery), Luisa Miller (Opéra de Lyon), Manon Lescaut (Teatro Regio, Parma), Susannah (recipient of The Irish Times Theatre Awards as “Best Opera Production”, 2006), Die Prinzessin Brambilla and La vestale (Wexford Festival Opera), No Mean City, La Cenerentola and Desire Under the Elms (Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow), Armide and Candide (Buxton Festival Opera), La traviata (Malmö Opera), Romeo e Giulietta nel villaggio and Carmen (recipient of the  Italian Music Critics’ Awards 2005, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari), Rigoletto, Le nozze di Figaro and Káťa Kabanová (Scottish Opera), The Cunning Little Vixen (Queen Elizabeth Hall, London), Eugene Onegin (Scottish Opera On Tour), Il campiello, Rinaldo, Cherevichki and The Snow Maiden (Guildhall) and four new operas for English National Opera’s Contemporary Opera Studio. She was engaged for revivals of Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro (directed by Graham Vick, Glyndebourne Festival Opera) and Macbeth (directed by Luc Bondy, Scottish Opera; on this production she also assisted Lucinda Childs).

She has directed Don Juan at the Citizens’ Theatre in Glasgow (“Big, bold, badly behaved, sexy, infuriating, edgy, beautiful and above all exhilaratingly theatrical.” The Times), Bizet’s Le Docteur Miracle at Wexford Festival Opera (“The hit of the afternoon series.” The Financial Times), La Cenerentola (OperaFour, London), San Francisco Xavier (the European premiere of a newly-discovered baroque opera, Nottingham Baroque Opera Festival), The Strangler at The Barbican’s Martinů Festival, London (“Gripping and enormously enjoyable – a pretty unbeatable combination.” The Times), Jazz Rigoletto and The Hoxton Hairdresser (English National Opera’s The Works) and Goldoni’s ll campiello and several Opera Showcases at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and the Royal College of Music. Maxine Braham was also the revival director of Macbeth for New Zealand Opera.

She has been Associate Director and Movement Director on four full-scale opera productions with Tim Albery – Nabucco for the Nationale Reisopera, Netherlands; Macbeth (winner of The Manchester Evening News Best Opera Production 2008 and well as joint-winner of the  TMA Best Opera 2008); Madama Butterfly for Opera North; and, most recently, Otello for Dallas Grand Opera. With Charles Edwards, she was Associate Director on Turandot (Nationale Reisopera) and Maria di Rohan (Wexford Festival Opera). Maxine was revival Associate Director on Graham Vick’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Assistant Director to Tim Albery on Idomeneo, a co-production with the Nationale Reisopera and Opera North. Maxine has also been Movement and Associate Director respectively with Thomas de Mallet-Burgess in Wexford (La vestale) and for the Malmö Opera (La traviata).

Less conventional projects include Cybergeneration for the Belfast International Festival, funded by the United Nations Peace and Reconciliation Fund, a dance performance with a mixed cast of Catholic and Protestant young people directed by Wayne McGregor, Conference of the Birds – an opera-theatre work for LIFE Theatre Festival performed at Vilnius Airport with British opera singers, Lithuanian pop stars and a chorus of thirty-seven orphans and staging the Opening Ceremony of the Formula One Grand Prix in Bahrain with world coverage on Sky TV.

As a dancer she has performed internationally with Lloyd Newson’s DV8, Second Stride, Rosemary Butcher, Adventures in Motion Pictures and Random Dance Companies, the Gloria Theatre Company, the Opera Circus and also for English National Opera, the English Bach Festival and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In film, she has performed with Keira Knightley in  Pride and Prejudice and with Julie Christie in Sally Potter’s The Gold Diggers.