Manon Lescaut

Francesco Ivan Ciampa, born in Avellino, Campania, studied conducting at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome and was an assistant to Antonio Pappano and Daniel Oren. In 2010/11, he won the National Arts Award and first prize at the Conducting Competition of the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research. He has conducted, among others, the Munich Philharmonic, the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, the Orchestra of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, the Italian Youth Orchestra, the Orchestre de l’Opéra Bastille in Paris, the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra "I Solisti di Napoli", the Valencia Symphony Orchestra, and i Pomeriggi Musicali. At the Opéra Bastille, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Teatro Regio in Turin, and the Zurich Opera House he conducted "La traviata"; at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, "Nabucco", "Maria Stuarda", and "Madama Butterfly"; at the Vienna State Opera, "L’elisir d’amore"; at the Hamburg State Opera, "Manon Lescaut", "Don Pasquale", and "Turandot"; and at the Bavarian State Opera, among others, "Il trovatore", "Otello", and "Aida". Guest engagements have also taken him to the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires as well as to Bilbao and Tel Aviv. At the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, he conducted "Turandot" and "Madama Butterfly", and at the Verdi Festival in Parma, "Il Corsaro", "I Masnadieri", and "Nabucco". He has a close artistic collaboration with baritone Leo Nucci in Piacenza and with soprano Diana Damrau in Paris, Barcelona, Genoa, and Monaco. From 2020 to 2022, Francesco Ivan Ciampa was the principal conductor of the Orchestra Filarmonica di Benevento.

Barrie Kosky was Artistic Director and Chief Stage Director of the Komische Oper Berlin from 2012 to 2022. He directs at major opera houses such as the Bavarian State Opera, the Paris Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and the Vienna State Opera, as well as at the Salzburg and Bayreuth Festivals, the Glyndebourne Festival, and at theatres including the Deutsches Theater Berlin and the Schauspiel Frankfurt. In 1996, he was Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival, and from 2001 to 2005, he served as Co-Director of the Schauspielhaus Wien. His award-winning production of "The Magic Flute" (together with 1927) at the Komische Oper Berlin has since been seen in over 45 cities worldwide. For "From the House of the Dead" at the Hanover State Opera, he received the theatre prize "Der Faust" in 2009, and for "Castor et Pollux" at the English National Opera, he was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award in 2011. His Bayreuth production of "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" was named "Performance of the Year" in the 2017 Opernwelt critics’ poll. Under his leadership, the Komische Oper Berlin was named "Opera House of the Year" for the 2012/13 season, followed in 2015 by the International Opera Award in the category "Ensemble of the Year." Barrie Kosky has been named "Director of the Year" several times, including in 2014 at the International Opera Awards, in 2016 in the Opernwelt critics’ poll, and in 2020 by the magazine Die deutsche Bühne. In 2022, he received the Order of Merit of Berlin and was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 2024. At the Zurich Opera House, Barrie Kosky has staged "La fanciulla del West," "Macbeth," "Eugen Onegin," "Die Gezeichneten," "Boris Godunov," and "Manon Lescaut."

Rufus Didwiszus studierte Bühnen- und Kostümbild in Stuttgart bei Jürgen Rose und ar­bei­­tet seither als freier Bühnenbildner in Theater-, Opern- und Tanz­produktio­­­nen, u. a. mit Barrie Kosky (La Belle Hélène, Die Perlen der Cleopatra und Anatevka an der Komischen Oper Berlin; La fan­ciul­la del West, Die Gezeichneten und Boris Godunow am Opernhaus Zü­­­rich; Orphée aux enfers, Salzburger Festspiele; Fürst Igor, Opéra de Paris; Der Ro­senkavalier, Bayerische Staatsoper), Tho­mas Ostermeier (u.a. Shop­pen &Ficken in der Baracke des Deutschen Theaters Berlin mit Einladung zum Berliner Theatertreffen und nach Avignon; Der blaue Vogel am Deutschen Theater, Feuergesicht am Schauspiel­haus Hamburg, Der Name bei den Salzburger Festspielen und an der Ber­li­ner Schau­­bühne, The Girl on the Sofa beim Edinburgh Interna­tio­nal Festival und an der Schaubühne, Vor Son­nen­­auf­gang an den Münchner Kammer­spie­len), Sasha Waltz, Tom Kühnel, Christian Stückl, Stefan Larsson, Tomas Alfredson und Christian Lollike. Seit 2004 entwirft und inszeniert Rufus Didwiszus mit Joanna Dud­ley eigene Musik-Theater-Performances, u. a. in den So­phien­sae­len, an der Schaubühne und im Ra­dial­system in Berlin sowie im BO­ZAR in Brüssel. Mit seiner Band «Friedrichs» war er in Der weisse Wolf am Staats­theater Stuttgart zu sehen. Zudem war er als Gastdozent an der Aka­­demie der Bildenden Künste München und an der Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee tätig. Für Christian Spuck entstanden die Bühnenbilder zu Der fliegende Hol­län­­der an der Deutschen Oper Berlin, Nussknacker und Mause­könig, Winter­reise, Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern,  Dornröschen und Monteverdi beim Ballett Zürich sowie Orlando am Moskauer Bolschoitheater.

Klaus Bruns, born in Mülheim an der Ruhr, studied stage and costume design at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Engagements as a costume designer took him, among others, to the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Schauspielhaus Graz, the Hamburg State Opera, the Frankfurt Opera, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera, the Theater an der Wien, the Dutch National Opera, the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, as well as to the festivals in Bayreuth and Salzburg. He maintains a close collaboration with Barrie Kosky, with whom he created productions, among others, at the Komische Oper Berlin, as well as at the Hanover State Opera, Schauspiel Frankfurt, and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. For the costumes of Kosky’s Bayreuth production of "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg", Klaus Bruns was named Costume Designer of the Year in 2018 by the magazine Opernwelt. Further collaborations connect him with directors such as Harry Kupfer, Peter Mussbach, Götz Friedrich, Kirsten Harms, Jetske Mijnssen, and Christof Loy. For Damiano Michieletto, he designed, among others, the costumes for the world premiere of Alexander Raskatov’s "Animal Farm" in Amsterdam, for which he received an Oper! Award in 2024. At the Zurich Opera House, productions created with Barrie Kosky include "La fanciulla del West", "Macbeth", "Die Gezeichneten", "Eugene Onegin", "Boris Godunov", and "Manon Lescaut".

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.

Klaas-Jan de Groot is a Dutch conductor and choral director. Since the 2025/26 season, he has been Chorus Director of the Opernhaus Zürich. After studying in The Hague and Cardiff, he served from 2016 to 2022 as assistant to Chorus Director Ching-Lien Wu at the Dutch National Opera, where he prepared several productions and projects with the opera chorus. Since 2018, he has worked regularly with the Netherlands Radio Choir (Groot Omroepkoor). From 2018 to 2024, he served annually as assistant to Chorus Director Eberhard Friedrich at the Bayreuth Festival. He has conducted various concerts and performances with Opera Zuid as well as with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and the Essener Philharmoniker. From 2022 to 2025, he was Chorus Director of the Aalto-Theater in Essen. Since 2023, he has worked regularly with the NDR Vokalensemble in Hamburg. In 2024, he made his debut with the MDR-Rundfunkchor as well as with the Rundfunkchor Berlin. In recognition of his support for emerging talent, Klaas-Jan de Groot was awarded the prestigious Dutch Conducting Prize of the Anton Kersjes Fonds in 2021.

Fabio Dietsche studied dramaturgy at the Zurich University of the Arts as well as cross flute with Maria Goldschmidt in Zurich and with Karl-Heinz Schütz in Vienna. He gained his first experience as a dramaturge in 2012/13 with Xavier Zuber at Konzert Theater Bern, where he accompanied, among others, Matthias Rebstock’s production of "neither" (Beckett/Feldman) at the Berner Reithalle. Since 2013, he has been a dramaturge at the Zurich Opera House, where he completed his studies with the production dramaturgy of Puccini’s "La bohème." There, he has been involved, among others, in the world premieres of Stefan Wirth’s "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and Leonard Evers’ "Odyssee," the chamber opera "Jakob Lenz" by Wolfgang Rihm, and the Swiss premiere of Manfred Trojahn’s "Orest." He has worked with, among others, Robert Carsen, Tatjana Gürbaca, Rainer Holzapfel, Andreas Homoki, Ted Huffman, Mélanie Huber, Barrie Kosky, Hans Neuenfels, and Kai Anne Schuhmacher. He is currently studying cultural management on a part-time basis at the University of Zurich.