Nicola Raab is a prolific, international young opera director who in her time as assistant has worked with directors such as Robert Carsen, Willy Decker, David Pountney, David Alden, Tim Albery, Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser.

Her career has taken her to many theatres in the world, including Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Wien, Welsh National Opera, Opernhaus Zürich, the New Israeli Opera, Salzburger Festspiele, Teatro Regio Turino, Teatro La Fenice Venezia, Janackova Opera Brno, and Opera North.

Her own work includes Soldier and Dancer by Martinu for Statni Opera Praha, Der Kuss with Opera Theatre Company Dublin, Zora D. with IOCN Amsterdam, Kammeroper Wien and BEMUS Belgrade, and "Moskau, Moskau" by Shostakovitch with Kammeroper Wien, for whose company she has over the years directed seven shows altogether. The first half of 2007 took her for 2 productions to Vienna: a since its premiere in 1730 unperformed baroque-opera "Artaxerxes" by Leonardo Vinci, and a British-composer double- bill of "When she died-death of a princess" by Jonathan Dove and "8 songs for a mad king" by P. Maxwell Davies. Further engagements in 2008 included directing a new opera by Isidora Zebeljan for Bregenz Festival and Neue Oper Wien plus another new production for Neue Oper Wien of German composer Detlev Glanert “Scherz, Satire, Ironien und tiefere Bedeutung”. Also has she made her US debut with Berlioz' "Beatrice and Benedict" for Chicago Opera Theatre in 2007, who have immediately invited her back for 2008 to direct the first fully-staged production in the US of the latest opera by John Adams "A Flowering Tree". 2009 saw her directing "Don Chisciotte" by Francesco Conti and "Owen Wingrave", both in Vienna. In 2010 she added another success, her triumph production of "Thais" at the Gothenburg Opera together with the artistic collaborators of 2007/Beatrice and Benedict, conductor Jan Latham-Koenig and designer Johan Engels, to her growing portfolio. This production has subsequently been shown at the Palau des Arts in Valencia with Placido Domingo giving his role-debut as Athanel, and again in Sevilla and Helsinki. Other recent undertakings were “Il Barbiere di Seviglia” for the Stadttheater in Regensburg, her hometown, and „The Io Passion”/Birtwhistle, her 7th staging for Kammeroper Wien.

The summer of 2011 saw her mounting the first ever performance of Parsifal in Estonia for Estonian National Opera and Tallinn Cultural Capital of the Year in a disused iron-foundry from Soviet times in the harbour of Tallinn, and the Swiss premiere of a new opera “Death and the Maiden” by Swiss composer Alfons Karl Zwicker after the play by Ariel Dorfman for the company in St. Gallen.

In 2012 she directed La Rondine at the Sao Carlos Lisboa and a double-bill of Mahagonny Songspiel and Les Malheurs d'Orphee in Mexico City.

Future plans include, amongst others, a new opera "Dorian Gray" by Lubica Ceckovsca for the opera in Bratislava, "The cunning little Vixen" for  St. Gallen, "Otello" in Copenhagen and Tristan and Isolde with Novaya Opera Moskow to open next in May 2013.

The extremly successfuly production of Thais (designed by Johan Engels) is to go to Los Angeles opera in April 2014, again with Placido Domingo as Athanael.