Nicola Raab has in recent years gained recognition internationally as a director of great sensitivity, detailed character work and visual flair. Her production of ‘Written on Skin’ for the Teatro Comunale Bolzano received the coveted ‘Premio Franco Abbiati’ by the Guild of Italian Music Critics in 2016. In 2013, she was awarded the Arets Reumert Prize for best Danish opera production for ‘Otello’ at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen. January 2025 she was appointed as the new Head of Opera at Staatstheater Darmstadt, complementing her work as director.
Highlights of the 24/25 season included Verdi's “Edgar” at the Opéra de Nice (in co-production with the Teatro Regio Torino and the Opéra national de Lorraine) and Traetta's “Ifigenia in Tauride” for the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music with Les Talens Lyriques. She also returned to the Savonlinna Opera Festival to reprise her successful production of “Boris Godunov.” Next spring, the Gothenburg Opera House will take on her production of “Jenůfa” from Athens.
Most recently she directed ‘Norma’ with conductor Fabio Luisi and set designer Leila Fteita at the Festival della Valle d’Itria, Keiser’s ‘Ulisses’ for Theater Orchester Biel Solothurn and in co-production with Theater Heidelberg at Winter in Schwetzingen, ‘Die Fledermaus’, a collaboration with the Conservatoire National Superieure de Musique Paris together with conductor Lucy Legay and in co-operation with Philharmonie de Paris, ‘Macbeth’ (Opéra de Dijon), ‘Turandot’ (Theater Regensburg) and Pallavicino’s opera ‘Le Amazzoni nell’isole fortunate’ together with Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset (Musikfestpiele Potsdam Sanssouci). Other Productions include ‘La Traviata’ (Komische Opera Berlin), ‘Rusalka’ (Opéra national du Rhin, Opéra de Limoges), ‘Ariodante’ (Drottningholms Slottsteater), ‘Jenůfa’ (Greek National Opera Athens), ‘Il Corsaro’ (Palau de les Arts Valencia), ‘Lakmé’ (Malmö Opera), ‘Francesca da Rimini’ (Opéra National du Rhin Strasbourg), ‘Elektra’ (Teatro Nacional de São Carlos Lisbon), ‘Semiramide’ (Opéra national de Lorraine) and ‘La Wally’ (Teatro Comunale Bolzano).
Elsewhere, Nicola Raab has staged ‘I Capuleti e i Montecchi’ (Bergen Opera), von Einem’s ‘Jesu Hochzeit’ (Carinthischer Sommer), ‘Written on Skin’, ‘Death and the Maiden’ and ‘The Cunning Little Vixen’ (Theater St. Gallen), John Adams’ ‘A Flowering Tree’ (Goeteborgs Operan, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos Lisbon), ‘Boris Godunov’ (Savonlinna Operafestival), ‘Lohengrin’ (Royal Danish Opera Copenhagen), ‘Béatrice et Bénédict’ by Berlioz and ‘A Flowering Tree’ (Chicago Opera Theatre), ‘Don Chisciotte’ by Francesco Conti and ‘Artaserse’ by Leonardo Vinci (Musikwerkstatt Wien), ‘The Marathon’ by Isidora Zebeljan (Bregenzer Festspiele), ‘Parsifal’ (Estonian National Opera), ‘Tristan und Isolde’ (Novaya Opera Moscow) as well as Massenet’s ‘Thaïs’ (Goeteborgs Operan, Finnish National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Palau de les Arts Valencia).
Early on in her career, Ms Raab produced a series of modern works for Kammeroper Wien, namely ‘Moskau, Tscherjomuschki’ by Shostakovitch, ‘When she died…’ by Jonathan Dove, ‘Eight Songs for a Mad King’ by P. Maxwell Davies, ‘The Io Passion’ by Harrison Birtwistle and Britten’s ‘Owen Wingrave’.