Award-winning stage director and designer Marc Callahan has worked on productions at the Royal Opera House, the Aldeburgh Festival, the Holland Festival, Scottish Opera, Miami Music Festival, the New World Center, Théâtre du Châtelet, and the Théâtre du Capitole. Particularly known for his “fringe” productions, Callahan received critical acclaim for Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes, saying it was “designed and directed with jaw-dropping invention” (Michael White, The Guardian) and was awarded first prize for his production of Kurt Weill’s Der Jasager from the National Opera Association and was a two-time winner of a Charles C. Reilly Director’s Prize. Recent productions include: The Marriage of Figaro, Cendrillon, The Blue Forest, Help, Help, the Globolinks!, Der Jasager, Lohengrin, Alcina, ATLAS, Die Walküre, Il sogno di Scipione, Albert Herring, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ordo Virtutum, and L’incoronazione di Poppea (“…devising a brilliant production of remarkable dramatic intimacy.”).
As a singer, Callahan’s operatic career has taken him around the world, performing at houses such as: The Royal Opera House, Opera North (UK), Santa Fe Opera, Carolina Performing Arts, Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Théâtre du Capitole, Opéra National de Lyon, Opéra de Montpellier, Opéra Comique, Théâtre Royale de Versailles, and the Opéra de Marseille. His repertoire includes: Hannah Before (As One), Don Giovanni, Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), il Conte di Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Belcore (L’elisir d’amore), Count Arnheim (The Bohemian Girl), Zar Peter (Zar und Zimmermann), Mercutio (Roméo et Juliette), Ramiro (L’heure espagnole), Harlekin (Ariadne auf Naxos), Sid (Albert Herring), Frédéric (Lakmé), Escamillo (Carmen), Le Carnival (Le Carnival et la Folie), Artemidore (Armide), and Bobinet (La vie Parisienne). As a concert performer, he has sung Charpentier’s Leçons et Ténèbres with Les Arts Florissants, an evening of mélodie française with the London Song Festival, Haydn’s The Creation, Götterdämmerung with Midsummer Opera (London), a program of Henri Dutilleux mélodies (Radio France), Stravinsky’s Les Noces, Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 5, and as bass soloist in The Tempest with Les Ombres and the Opéra de Marseille. He has recorded with Virgin Classics, FRA Musica, Passavant, Newport Classic, Editions d’Ambronay, Radio France, and has an upcoming recording of works by Gerald Finzi with Albany Records. Opera magazine has hailed him as “a powerful baritone, providing wickedly glamorous tone.”