ANNA SOFIE KELLER
director opera performance
BIOGRAPHY
Anna Sofie Keller focus on directing and creating Music Theater in new formats. She is animated by the importance of critically rethinking what opera is, can, and should be – of expanding the array of artists included, voices heard and stories told.
Anna Sofie Keller Brandsborg is a Danish, Berlin-based stage director specializing in contemporary and experimental music drama. She holds a BA in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Copenhagen and Freie Universität Berlin, and will graduate in 2026 with a Master of Music Theater Direction from the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music Berlin. Anna Sofie is a former guest student at the Ernst Busch Schauspielschule, participated in mentorship and visiting artist programs with Mary Birnbaum and Stephen Wadsworth at The Juilliard School in New York, completed masterclasses with SHESHEPOP (UDK Berlin), Katharina Wagner, David Hermann, and David Marton, and trained in classical singing with Susanna Eken in Copenhagen.
She was shortlisted for the Académie des Beaux-Arts Art Explora Prize (2023) for Party Bus Opera: RIDESINGREPEAT and received 1st Prize at the SNABSSLANTEN Pitch Please Competition (2020). Her production The Undoing of Carmen received national media attention in Denmark for its exploration of a feminist criminological theory and its reconfiguration of Bizet’s opera through a homicide timeline structure (based on the work of Jane Monckton-Smith). In 2026, she was selected as a director participant for the Women Opera Makers Workshop at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence under the guidance of Katie Mitchell.
Anna Sofie has directed at Deutsche Oper Berlin (Tischlerei), Copenhagen Opera Festival, the Royal Danish Opera, Opera Hedeland, Betty Nansen Teater, and Dansekapellet. Past productions include Cave (Deutsche Oper Berlin – Tischlerei, world premiere, 2025), The Undoing of Carmen (Betty Nansen Teater / Copenhagen Opera Festival, 2024), Don Giovanni – The Game (Operaen i Midten / Ensemble Midtvest, 2024), and 8 Songs for a Mad King (Insimul Sinfonietta / Aalborg Opera Festival, 2021–22). As an assistant director, she has worked on productions by Tobias Teorell, Barrie Kosky, Rodula Gaitanou, Dmitri Tcherniakov, La Fura dels Baus, Elisabeth Linton, and John Fulljames.
She is Artistic Director of MORE IS MORE Production, Neugeboren Opera Group and co-founder of the opera collective Venteværelset, and has collaborated internationally with the immersive performance group Sisters Hope, exploring interactive and site-specific formats. Her collaborations with contemporary composers include Kirstine Fogh Vindelev, Nick Martin, Haukur Þór Harðarson, Finnur Karlsson, and Zara Ali. She explores immersive, collaborative, politically and feminist-informed approaches to music theatre and drama, and works closely with dramaturg Marlene Schleicher.
In 2026, Anna Sofie directs the larger project THE RING – FOREVER HOT, a three-hour immersive reinterpretation of Wagner’s Ring cycle, which premieres in full at Copenhagen Opera Festival in August.
In 2026/27, she directs MEDEA: MOTHER MONSTERS WHORES (BAT Studio Berlin / TBA Copenhagen), a research-based opera engaging with female violence and baroque opera, and Fanfiction of The Opera (Theater Sort/Hvid), examining sexualized violence in Mozart’s Da Ponte operas. She collaborates regularly with Copenhagen Opera Festival, where she has presented multiple productions and new creations.
