James Marvel made his Lincoln Center debut in 2008 for the Juilliard Opera Center with Maestro James Conlon conducting. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2011, working on Katy Tucker’s video production of Carmina Burana. In 2012, James directed the U.S. Premier of Cavalli’s Eliogabalo for the Gotham Chamber Opera. In March 2011, James made his debut with Opera Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa with a new production of Carmen that was hailed as “stupendous” by the local press. In March 2012, James made his Paris debut with the The Man of La Mancha at the Theatre des Varietes. James returned to Paris in 2013 to direct the world-premier of Dale Wasserman’s The Beggar’s Holiday at Espace Pierre Cardin.

In 2009, James made his debut in Seoul, South Korea and directed a critically acclaimed new production of Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria for the Wolf Trap Opera Company. In 2010, James returned to Wolf Trap to direct Mozart’s Zaide and made his Canadian debut directing The Rape of Lucretia. James was named Classical Singer Magazine’s “2008 – Stage Director of the Year.” Since his professional directing debut in 1996, he has directed over 100 productions in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, South Korea, and the Czech Republic.

Other career highlights include groundbreaking new productions of Les Pecheurs De Perles for Opera Boston; La Voix Humaine at Florence Gould Hall in New York City and for the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Belgium; and Tosca at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. James has also directed notable productions for for New Orleans Opera, Syracuse Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, San Antonio Opera, Kentucky Opera, Virginia Opera, Aspen Music Festival, Opera Tampa, San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, Indiana University, Boston University, and the University of Southern California. In 2011, James became Director of Opera for the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and continues to keep an active directing schedule in the United States and abroad.