Maxim Didenko is a theatre and opera director whose work moves between physical, dance, music, visual and dramatic theatre. His productions combine ensemble movement, choreography, live music, video and large-scale visual composition to reimagine classical and contemporary texts.

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Trained as an actor and director at the St Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy, he began as a performer, dancer and choreographer with Derevo, the Dresden-based physical theatre company, and in the orbit of AKHE Russian Engineering Theatre and Prague’s Farm in the Cave. In Moscow and St Petersburg he became one of the most prolific and closely watched directors of his generation, and taught at the Moscow Art Theatre School and his alma mater.

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Since leaving Russia after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he has directed steadily across Germany, the UK and beyond. Recent productions include The Snow Maiden at Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Musik für die Lebenden at Oper Bonn, The Castle at Staatsschauspiel Dresden and The Night in Lisbon at Nationaltheater Mannheim. In London, where he has also taught at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, his staging of The White Factory at Marylebone Theatre won Best Production at the Off West End Awards.

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Beyond the stage, he directs for the screen — music videos and a short-form series — and has experimented with VR and immersive, site-specific formats.

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​This season he stages The Master and Margarita at Nationaltheater Mannheim (premiere 27 November 2026) and makes his Vienna debut with Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel at MusikTheater an der Wien (premiere 22 January 2027). He is also developing The Doors of Perception, a physical theatre piece after Aldous Huxley.