NICOLA BOWIE - Stage Director, MADAMA BUTTERFLY and THE MAGIC FLUTE

Nicola Bowie trained at the Legat School of Russian Balllet and the Royal Ballet Upper School. She danced professionally with English National Ballet, formally London Festival Ballet. She joined English National Opera in 1976 and was appointed Head of Movement in 1988, a post she held until 2001. In this capacity she worked on over 60 productions choreographing most notably, Die Fledermaus, Princess Ida, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, Die Soldaten, Mary Stuart, The Damnation of Faust, The Pearl Fishers, The Flying Dutchman, Eugene Onegin, Wozzeck and Khovanshchina. She has choreographed Salome for Scottish Opera but also in Bonn, Dresden, Munich, San Diego, Boston and at Glimmerglass Opera. She choreographed Street Scene for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for English National Opera and Vanessa for Washington Opera starring Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

 

She has worked at Seattle Opera on Rigoletto and Die Fledermaus. In 2003 she was invited to Glyndebourne Festival Opera to choreograph a new production of Die Fledermaus which was also recorded by the BBC on Video and DVD and broadcast on Christmas Day. As the interval feature of this broadcast she devised and presented a documentary on The History of the Waltz. She choreographed Jenufa and Le Nozze di Figaro for Cincinnati Opera whilst in residence as the Young Artists' Drama and Movement Director in 1998 and 2002. For the past seven summers she has been at Glimmerglass Opera to working with the Young American Artists' Program in addition to her work for the main stage productions.


She directed The Abduction from the Seraglio at NYCO and Il Trovatore for Dayton Opera. She has directed the English National Opera/Opera North production of The Love for Three Oranges for the Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos in Lisbon, the New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv and Opera Zuid in Maastricht and most recently for Portland Opera USA where she also directed The Mikado a nd in 2005 choreographed Street Scene. She also co-directed the ENO production of Figaro's Wedding for the Madrid Mozart Festival and co-directed Rigoletto for Scottish Opera. In 2001 she directed The Dialogues of the Carmelites for the University of Southern California and in 2003 she directed Le Nozze di Figaro and L'Heure Espagnol for Florida Grand Opera.

This Spring Nicola directed Cosi fan Tutte for Cal State University Long Beach following her productions of Die Fledermaus & La Fille du Regiment which were presented in 2003 and 2004

In August following her frequent engagements as Movement/Scenes Director for the San Francisco Opera Adler program, Nicola directed Il Matrimonio Segreto for Merola.

Future engagements include: Choreographer Die Fledermaus Glyndebourne Touring Opera October 2006, Movement Director Maria Stuarda Dallas Opera January 2007, Movement Director Orpheus & Eurydice Glimmerglass Opera July 2007, Choreographer Tannhauser San Diego Opera January 2008, Director La Boheme Florida Grand Opera April 2008.