Fidelio

Krzysztof Urbański is Music Director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. In addition, he is an internationally sought-after guest conductor performing with orchestras such as the Munich Philharmonic, the Orchestra dell'Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Vienna Symphony, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra , the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra Washington. More recently, he made his debuts with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Orchestre de Paris and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. From 2010 to 2017, he was principal conductor of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, which then named him honorary conductor. He also served as principal guest conductor of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra for four seasons starting in 2012. In June 2015, he received the prestigious Leonard Bernstein Award from the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the first conductor ever to do so. Urbański's collaboration with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester is now documented on seven CDs with works by Lutosławski, Dvořák, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Strauss. In addition, Urbański's discography includes a recording of Martinů's Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sol Gabetta.

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 Berlin (West). In 1987 he went to the Cologne Opera as an assistant director and stage manager, where he remained until 1993. From 1988 to 1992 he was also a lecturer for stage instruction at the opera school of the Cologne University of Music. It was here that his first own productions were created. In 1992 his first guest production took him to Geneva, where his interpretation of "Die Frau ohne Schatten" received 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 in Cologne, Hamburg, Geneva, Lyon, Leipzig, Basel, Berlin, Amsterdam and Munich, among others. As early as 1996 he made his debut at the Komische Oper Berlin with "Falstaff", followed by "The Love for Three Oranges" (1998) and in 2000 "The Merry Widow". In 2002 Andreas Homoki was appointed chief director of the Komische Oper Berlin as successor to Harry Kupfer, and in 2004 he became its artistic director. In addition to his directing work at the Komische Oper Berlin, he staged productions at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the New National Theatre Tokyo, the Semperoper Dresden and the Hamburg State Opera, among others. In July 2012, under the musical direction of William Christie, he staged "David et Jonathas" by Marc-Antoine Charpentier for the Festival in Aix-en-Provence – a production that was later also shown in Edinburgh, Paris and New York, among other places. From 2012 to 2025 Andreas Homoki was artistic director of the Zurich Opera House, where he staged productions including "The Flying Dutchman" (co-production with La Scala in Milan and the Norwegian National Opera Oslo), "Fidelio", "Juliette", "Lohengrin" (co-production with the Vienna State Opera), "Luisa Miller" (Hamburg State Opera), "Wozzeck", "My Fair Lady" (Komische Oper Berlin), "I puritani", "Medée", "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 Academy of the Arts Berlin since 1999.

Henrik Ahr, born in Bensberg, initially worked as a freelance artist after training as a chef and studied architecture in Leipzig from 1995 to 2001. He designed his first stage sets in 2000 for the Neue Szene Leipzig and in 2001 at the Theaterhaus Jena for Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club". Since 2005 Henrik Ahr has lived and worked in Vienna as a stage designer and painter. Since 2010 he has been a Professor of Stage Design at the Mozarteum Salzburg, where he also heads the Department of Scenography. He has a close artistic collaboration, among others, with Michael Thalheimer, Christof Loy and Tatjana Gürbaca. With Thalheimer he created works such as Schnitzler's "Liebelei" at the Thalia Theater Hamburg, which was invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen, Brecht's "Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti" in Hamburg, Schubert's "Winterreise" at the Deutsches Theater Berlin and "Rigoletto" at Theater Basel. He first worked with Christof Loy in 2008 at the Theater an der Wien on Strauss's "Intermezzo"; this was followed by productions including "Lucrezia Borgia" at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and "Der Tausch" at Schauspielhaus Zurich. Henrik Ahr has an ongoing collaboration with Tatjana Gürbaca, resulting in productions such as "Arabella" at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, "Parsifal" at the Vlaamse Opera Antwerp, Hasse's "Leucippo" at the Schwetzingen Festival and at the Cologne Opera, "La traviata" in Oslo, the "Ring" trilogy and "Capriccio" at the Theater an der Wien, as well as "Le Grand Macabre" and most recently "Das grosse Feuer" in Zurich. At the Zurich Opera House he also designed the stage sets for "Die Schatzinsel", "Fidelio" and "I puritani".

Barbara Drosihn, born in Hamburg, studied costume design at the University of Applied Sciences in her hometown after training as a seamstress. Since then she has worked as a freelance costume designer at venues including the Thalia Theater, the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, the Burgtheater Vienna, the Schauspielhaus Bochum, the Staatsschauspiel Dresden and the Schauspiel Köln. In the process, she has created works for directors such as Michael Thalheimer, Stephan Kimmig, Nicolas Stemann, Andreas Kriegenburg and Stefan Bachmann. Her first opera was "Lucrezia Borgia", for which she designed the costumes in 2009 for Christof Loy at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. This was followed by productions including "Der Rosenkavalier" and "Der ferne Klang" at the Royal Opera Stockholm, "The Miracle of Heliane" at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, "Così fan tutte" at the Salzburg Festival and "Don Pasquale" at the Zurich Opera House. There she also designed the costumes for Andreas Homoki's productions of "I puritani" and "Fidelio". She has a close artistic collaboration with Tatjana Gürbaca, for whom she created the costumes for "Parsifal" and "The Flying Dutchman" in Antwerp, "La traviata" in Oslo, "Capriccio" and the "Ring" trilogy at the Theater an der Wien, as well as "La finta giardiniera" and "Le Grand Macabre" at the Zurich Opera House. In recent seasons she designed the costumes for "Der Schatzgräber" at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, "Káťa Kabanová" at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, "Il trittico" at the Salzburg Festival, "Die Königskinder" in Amsterdam, "Bluebeard's Castle" / "The Miraculous Mandarin" in Basel, "Rusalka" in Hanover and "La Voix humaine" / "Erwartung" at the Teatro Real in Madrid.

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 to combine 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 with Ken Russell and Robert Wilson, among others. In 1986 he began working as an independent lighting designer at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus and obtained his master’s certificate in lighting in 1993. During this time he had a close collaboration with Werner Schröter and the conductor Eberhard Kloke. This was followed by productions in Nantes, Strasbourg, Paris, Lyon, Vienna, Bonn, Brussels and Los Angeles, among other places. From 1995 to 2012 he was Artistic Director of the lighting department at the Komische Oper Berlin, where he was responsible for all new productions. Important artistic partners during this period included Andreas Homoki, Barrie Kosky, Calixto Bieito and Hans Neuenfels. In 2006 Franck Evin was awarded the German Theatre Prize "Opus" in the category of lighting design. From 2012 to 2025 he was Artistic Director of the lighting department at the Zurich Opera House. In addition to his work in Zurich, he continued to work on international productions at opera houses in Oslo, Stockholm, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Munich and Graz, as well as at the Opéra Bastille, Teatro alla Scala, Teatro La Fenice, the Vlaamse Opera and at the Bayreuth Festival.

Alexander du Prel, who comes from Northern Bavaria, initially worked as a theatre photographer and camera assistant before beginning his studies in visual communication/art at the Gesamthochschule Kassel in 1994. From 1998 he also studied under Michael Ballhaus at the University of Hamburg and completed his studies in 2000 with a diploma as a cinematographer and visual director. Alexander du Prel has worked as a cinematographer on numerous feature films, documentaries and short films, including the Irish feature film "Swan Song" (director: Conor McDermottroe), for which he was nominated for Best Cinematography at the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography Camerimage in 2010. As a video artist, he has been working with Michael Thalheimer since 2000. This collaboration resulted in installations for "Liliom" at the Thalia Theater Hamburg (2000), "Medea" at the Frankfurt Theatre (2012) – this production opened the Berlin Theatertreffen 2013 – and most recently for "Woyzeck" (2013) and "Peer Gynt" (2018) at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. Du Prel had already worked with Henrik Ahr in 2002 on "Liebelei", also under the direction of Michael Thalheimer. "Fidelio" was his first opera project and at the same time his first collaboration with Andreas Homoki. Alexander du Prel taught at the Mozarteum Salzburg until 2019. He lives and works in Hamburg and Berlin.

Ernst Raffelsberger comes from Gmunden, Upper Austria. He studied music education and church music at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna as well as choral conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. From 1983 to 1986 he was Kapellmeister of the Vienna Boys’ Choir. During this time, he led the ensemble in Vienna and on tours through Europe, South Africa, Canada, and the USA. From 1986, Ernst Raffelsberger was choral director and Kapellmeister at the Salzburg State Theatre (participating in the Salzburg Mozart Week and the Salzburg Festival). In 1989 he moved as choral director and Kapellmeister to the theatre in Freiburg/Breisgau. Since autumn 1993, Ernst Raffelsberger has been engaged at the Zurich Opera House as choral director. Here he has since supervised around 150 premieres and countless revivals and worked with many renowned conductors such as Marco Armiliato, Riccardo Chailly, Teodor Currentzis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Daniele Gatti, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Zubin Mehta, Gianandrea Noseda, and Franz Welser-Möst. Guest performances with the Zurich Opera House have taken him to Vienna, London, Paris, and Tokyo. From summer 2012 he additionally began a ten-year activity as choral director of the Vienna State Opera Chorus Association at the Salzburg Festival. There he collaborated successfully with, among others, Riccardo Muti, Mariss Jansons, and Sir Simon Rattle. After Ernst Raffelsberger ended this work with the festival summer 2021, he has since 2025 once again been responsible, at Maestro Muti’s request, for choral preparation for his festival concerts in Salzburg. Numerous CD and DVD recordings document his work in Zurich as well as in Salzburg.

The author and dramaturg Werner Hintze studied theatre studies at Humboldt University in Berlin. Following an initial appointment at the Landestheater Halle, he worked at the Semperoper Dresden before moving to the Hans-Otto-Theater in Potsdam as chief dramaturg. From 2002 to 2012, he was chief dramaturg at the Komische Oper Berlin. Since 2012, he has lived in Berlin as a freelance dramaturg, author and university lecturer. He worked closely for many years with directors such as Peter Konwitschny, Andreas Homoki and Andreas Baumann, and served as a guest dramaturg at opera houses in Munich, Hamburg, Dresden, Zurich and Essen, amongst others. Since 1985, he has produced more than 30 German-language librettos for operas, mostly in collaboration with Bettina Bartz, as commissioned works for the Komische Oper and other theatres. In addition to his work in theatre, Werner Hintze teaches students of directing, set design and theatre studies at various universities. At the Zurich Opera House, he most recently supervised Andreas Homoki’s sensational new production of "Der Ring des Nibelungen".