In November of 2008, James Marvel made his Lincoln Center debut for the Juilliard Opera Center with Maestro James Conlon conducting. In 2009, James made his debut in Seoul, South Korea and directed a critically acclaimed new production of Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria for the Wolf Trap Opera Company.

James was named Classical Singer Magazine's "2008 - Stage Director of the Year." Since his professional directing debut in 1996, he has directed over 60 productions in the United States, England, Scotland, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. James recently made his Italian debut in Sulmona, Italy directing La Boheme.

His new production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress for the San Francisco Opera Merola Program was named "Best Production of the Year" by the San Francisco Chronicle. James served as Co-Director with Henryk Baranowski at Teatr Wielki in Lodz, Poland on Philip Glass' Akhnaten, which won 2 Golden Mask Awards for Best Direction and Best Production of the Year.

Other career highlights include groundbreaking new productions of Les Pecheurs De Perles for Opera Boston; La Voix Humaine at Florence Gould Hall in New York City and for the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Belgium; and Tosca at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.