Cameron Menzies
Award-winning director Cameron Menzies joined Northern Ireland Opera in November 2020 mid-way through the pandemic as Artistic Director and Chief Executive. His career encompasses opera, theatre, music theatre, cabaret and film-making and his work has been seen throughout Australia, United Kingdom, Europe, South Africa, Japan and China.
Cameron’s experience reaches into the health/arts sector and youth and community arts, having created and worked with organisations to present programming through Royal Melbourne Hospital Music Therapy Dept, Royal Melbourne Children’s Hospital, BreaCan – breast cancer support, All the Queens Men – Coming Back Out Ball for LGBTQI+ over 65’s. He was commissioned to present for the 20th International AIDS conference his findings and work on the verbatim piece of theatre called STATUS looking into Stigma and HIV. Guest Speaker for the 33rd Australian Music Therapy Association National Conference on the chorus of women piece from 2008. Cameron has extensive experience in working with and creation youth opera with youth performers including works such as The Grumpiest Boy in the World, The Selfish Giant and an Australian Classic – The Magic Pudding. He has over 20 years of experience working in this part of the sector.
He has worked for Shakespeare’s Globe, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Diva Opera UK, Opera Australia, Victorian Opera, Short Black Opera Company, Malthouse Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra & Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He is a Helpmann and Green Room Nominated director and awards include the Berlin New Music Opera award (2011), Bayreuth Opera Award for Opera Foundation Australia and a Sydney Award in 2016 for the best direction of Pecan Summer Australia’s first Indigenous Opera.
Recent credits include Sequins and Satire, Divas and Disruptors: The Wild Women of the Weimar Republic, Carnegie Hall, the short feature film: Old Friends and Other Days, 50th Anniversary National Australian tour of HAIR The Original Tribal Rock Musical, Sister Act The Musical at The Vaults UK, Fluid and Under the Covers starring Courtney Act, Lucia di Lammermoor UK and Australia, Yma Sumac: The Peruvian Songbird starring Ali McGregor, Tosca, Don Giovanni, Madama Butterfly, La Bohème Die Sieben Todsünden by Brecht/Weill starring Meow Meow and Strauss’ Salome at the Palais Theatre. He has directed the world premieres of Pecan Summer, Redfern, The Selfish Giant, CONTACT! A Netball Opera, The Grumpiest Boy in the World.
Since arriving in Belfast as Chief Executive and Artistic Director of Northern Ireland Opera in March 2021, Cameron has already achieved great acclaim. His critically lauded production of La Bohème was mounted in the thick of COVID and during the height of social distancing, and specifically designed and conceptualised to be presented in the iconic Carlisle Memorial Church. In its five star review, Opera Now Magazine called the production “Opera at its finest”. Cameron’s film created for NI Opera, Old Friends and Other Days, a cinematic experience featuring the music of Irish composers William Vincent Wallace and William Balfe has been hailed as unique, and lovingly like a “messed up Merchant Ivory film”. This film has been officially selected by The Belfast Film Festival, Prague International Film Festival, is nominated for a British Short Film Award for Best Long Short Film and has also been officially selected to be part of the London International Short Film Festival.
Recent credits for Northern Ireland Opera include the award-winning ‘Into The Woods’, Lyric Theatre Belfast, and the critically-acclaimed ‘Tosca’ 2023 and ‘La Traviata’ (2022) at The Grand Opera House, Belfast plus ‘Cupid’s Bow’ and ‘The Juniper Tree’ at The Studio, Grand Opera House in February 2024. Cameron was nominated for a Best Director for Into the Woods at The Irish Times, 25th Irish Theatre Awards 2022 and his production of Into the Woods for Northern Ireland Opera won Best Production at The Irish Times, 25th Irish Theatre Awards 2022. In 2025 he will be directing ‘Follies’ for Northern Ireland Opera at the Grand Opera House Belfast and ‘It’s Come To This’ starring Meow Meow in the Soho Theatre in London.