Guido Martin-Brandis is a director and cellist based in London. His imaginative, character driven, musically sensitive, detail oriented productions have garnered excellent reviews in the press, marking him out as a rising talent amongst British opera directors. His last four shows reviewed in Opera Now Magazine all received five star reviews, and his shows have been nominated for the OffWestEnd Awards and also the Standing Ovation Awards.
He is particularly passionate about the German and Slavic operatic repertoire, alongside the operas of the French Baroque, and formed The Opera Company in 2017 to put on productions of these works. His first two shows with the company, Onegin and Tatiana, and The Cunning Little Vixen, enjoyed sell out runs at the Arcola Theatre as part of the Grimeborn Festival. In 2022 with The Opera Company he directed three operas by Rameau: the UK premiere of the 1737 version Castor et Pollux, and a double bill of Pigmalion and Nélée et Myrthis. More recent directing projects have included critically acclaimed productions of L’elisir d’amore for Wild Arts and La Cenerentola for Opera Kipling (OffFest awards finalist), the world premiere of A Child in Striped Pyjamas based on John Boyne’s bestselling novel (subsequently revived at the Brundibar Arts Festival), Dido and Aeneas for Somserset Opera, and La Serva Padrona, and Bastien et Basteinne (Opera de Baugé).
Guido has a love of lesser known repertoire, and in 2021 he directed the UK premiere of the 1933 version of Strauss’ Die Ägyptische Helena for Fulham Opera, a production which was critically acclaimed. The two shows he devised based on forgotten French baroque music - Rameau’s Roots, and The Theatre of the Salon - both got five star reviews in Opera now and were described respectively as “a transporting little delight” and “entirely magical… exhilaration out of all proportion to the means”.
Guido is extremely passionate about the artistic development of young singers, and he has been invited to direct opera scenes at Guildhall School of Music and Drama for four consecutive years. Future plans include directing Die Fledermaus for The Merry Opera Company, and Hansel and Gretel at the Camden Fringe Festival, a revival tour of The Theatre of the Salon, and Der Rosenkavalier for The Opera Company.
Previously, he directed the world premiere of award winning composer Grace-Evangeline Mason’s debut opera, The Yellow Wallpaper (Helios Collective, ENO Lilian Baylis House) and Cosi fan Tutte at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Camden Fringe Festival (Opera Kipling), a Menotti double bill for Opera Diaspora, and created a Lego stop motion animation of Rusalka. Other directing projects include A Pinch of Salt for Bards Theatre, Vanessa at the Brickhouse Theatre Company with Iambe Opera, and semi stagings of acts from Tristan und Isolde, Die Walkure, and Parsifal for Telescopera.
As Assistant, Associate, and Co-Director he has worked with Garsington Festival Opera (Capriccio), Opera de Baugé (Rigoletto, Idomeneo, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Faust, Die Zauberflote, Orphée aux Enfers, Alfonso und Estrella, Die Lustige Witwe), The Royal Academy of Music (The Rape of Lucretia), Guildhall School of Music and Drama (Pedro Paramo), Fulham Opera (Don Carlo), and Darker Purpose Theatre (King Lear, The Marriage of Figaro, La Boheme, The Four Note Opera, Boris Johnson the Musical).
Guido led the cello section of the Cambridge University Symphony Orchestra while he was studying, and subsequently performed for a season with the Symphony Orchestra of India. As a teenager he discovered a love for the hidden corners of the classical repertoire, and collected over 400 cello concertos in the process. He is a member of the band The Massive Violins, seven cellists who perform their own arrangements of pop and rock classics from Queen, to Johnny Cash, to The Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears.
As a director he draws on this deep love and knowledge of music to integrate the musical and dramatic values in opera as fully as possible. Raised in a family of artists, he developed a love visual art and design, and a keen visual sense from a young age. He is a prolific musical arranger, and received praise in the press for his reduction for piano quintet of the full orchestral score of The Cunning Little Vixen. Having studied acting and theatre with veteran Meisner teacher Dominic Kelly, and Actor and Director Antonia Doggett, this year he will begin teaching classes on acting, performance and interpretation for opera singers. He also writes notably popular programme notes for classical concerts, some of which can be read on his blog.