Die Geschichte vom Soldaten

Andreas Homoki was born in Germany in 1960 as the son of a Hungarian family of musicians and studied school music and German studies in West Berlin. In 1987 Andreas Homoki joined Cologne Opera as an assistant director and evening director, where he was engaged until 1993. From 1988 to 1992 he was also a lecturer in stage practice at the opera school of the Cologne University of Music. His first own productions were created there. In 1992 his first guest production took him to Geneva, where his interpretation of "Die Frau ohne Schatten" attracted international attention. The production, which was later also shown at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, received the French Critics’ Prize of the Year in 1994. From 1993 to 2002 Andreas Homoki worked as a freelance opera director and staged productions, among others, in Cologne, Hamburg, Geneva, Lyon, Leipzig, Basel, Berlin, Amsterdam and Munich. As early as 1996 he made his debut at the Komische Oper Berlin with "Falstaff", followed by "Die Liebe zu drei Orangen" (1998) and, in 2000, "Die lustige Witwe". In 2002 Andreas Homoki was appointed chief director of the Komische Oper Berlin as the successor to Harry Kupfer, and in 2004 he became its intendant. In addition to his directing work at the Komische Oper Berlin, he staged productions, among others, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the New National Theatre Tokyo, the Saxon State Opera Dresden and the Hamburg State Opera. In July 2012 he staged Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s "David et Jonathas" under the musical direction of William Christie for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, a production that was later shown, among other places, in Edinburgh, Paris and New York. From the 2012/13 season to 2024/25 Andreas Homoki served as intendant of Zurich Opera House and staged there, among others, "Der fliegende Holländer" (a co-production with La Scala in Milan and the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo), "Fidelio", "Juliette", "Lohengrin" (a co-production with the Vienna State Opera), "Luisa Miller" (Hamburg State Opera), "Wozzeck", "My Fair Lady" (Komische Oper Berlin), "I puritani", "Médée", "Lunea" (named "World Premiere of the Year 2017/18" by the magazine Opernwelt), "Iphigénie en Tauride", "Nabucco", "Simon Boccanegra", "Les Contes d’Hoffmann", "Salome", the "Ring des Nibelungen" and "Carmen". Andreas Homoki has been a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts since 1999.

Jeannette Seiler stammt aus Zürich. Sie studierte Kostüm- und Bühnenbild am Mozarteum Salzburg bei Herbert Kapplmüller. Nach dem Studium assistierte sie zunächst bei den Salzburger Festspielen (u.a. bei Peter Mussbach und Moidele Bickel) und war für das Zeitfluss Festival im Rahmen der Salzburger Festspiele als Produktionsleiterin (100 objects to represent the world von Peter Greenaway) und im Festivalmanagement tätig. Später arbeitete sie als freischaffende Assistentin/Mitarbeiterin und Ausstatterin in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz und zeitweise als Dozentin für Kostümgeschichte und figürliches Zeichnen an der Modedesign Schule Zürich. Seit 2008 ist sie als künstlerische Produktionsbetreuerin für Kostüm am Opernhaus Zürich tätig. Hier entwarf sie bereits die Kostüme für Hinter Masken / Sleep, Der geduldige Sokrates (Telemann), Zweimal Alexander (Martinů) und Fälle (Oscar Strasnoy).

Franck Evin, born in Nantes, moved to Paris at the age of 19 to study piano. At night he accompanied singers at the café théâtre Le Connétable and also began to take an interest in lighting. He eventually decided on a combination of music and technology. Thanks to a scholarship from the French Ministry of Culture, he became assistant to the head of lighting at the Opéra de Lyon in 1983. There he worked, among others, with Ken Russell and Robert Wilson. In 1986 he began working as a freelance lighting designer at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and passed the master lighting designer examination in 1993. Particularly close during this period was his collaboration with Werner Schröter and with the conductor Eberhard Kloke. This was followed by productions in, among other places, Nantes, Strasbourg, Paris, Lyon, Vienna, Bonn, Brussels and Los Angeles. From 1995 to 2012 he was artistic director of the lighting department at the Komische Oper Berlin and was responsible there for all new productions. During this time, Andreas Homoki, Barrie Kosky, Calixto Bieito and Hans Neuenfels became especially important collaborators for him. In 2006 Franck Evin was awarded the "OPUS" in the category of lighting design. From the 2012/13 season to 2024/25 he worked as artistic director of the lighting department at Zurich Opera House. In addition to his work in Zurich, he continued to be involved as a guest in international productions, for example at the opera houses in Oslo, Stockholm, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Munich and Graz, as well as at the Opéra Bastille, La Scala in Milan, Teatro La Fenice, Vlaamse Opera and the Bayreuth Festival.

Claus Spahn was chief dramaturge at the Zurich Opera House during Andreas Homoki’s tenure as artistic director. There, he supervised music theater projects by Wolfgang Rihm, Helmut Lachenmann, George Benjamin, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, and world premieres by Heinz Holliger, Christian Jost, and Stefan Wirth. As a production dramaturge, he worked with directors such as Sebastian Baumgarten, Herbert Fritsch, Jan Philipp Gloger, Tatjana Gürbaca, Andreas Homoki, Barrie Kosky, Nadja Loschky, David Marton, and Evgeni Titov. He also shares a close artistic partnership with the choreographer and former director of Zurich Ballet, Christian Spuck. For him, Spahn was involved in the development of the productions “Anna Karenina,” “Nussknacker und Mausekönig,” and “Monteverdi” in Zurich, he also wrote libretti for the ballets “Orlando” based on Virginia Woolf (world premiere in 2021 at the Moscow Bolshoi Ballet) and “Bovary” based on Gustave Flaubert (world premiere in 2023 at the Berlin State Ballet). Additionally, he is the librettist of the chamber opera “The Dream of You” by Swiss composer Xavier Dayer, which premiered in 2017 at the Zurich Opera House. Before joining the Zurich Opera House, Claus Spahn was the arts editor for 14 years at the German weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT, where he was responsible for the music section. From 1990 to 1997, he worked as a freelance music journalist mainly for the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Bavarian Broadcasting. Claus Spahn was born in Germany, studied classical guitar in Freiburg im Breisgau, and completed training at the German School of Journalism in Munich.