Messa da Requiem

Marco Armiliato studied piano at the Paganini Conservatory in his hometown of Genoa and began his conducting career in 1989 with “L’elisir d’amore” in Lima, Peru. In 1995, he made his debut with “Il barbiere di Siviglia” at Teatro La Fenice in Venice, followed a year later by “Andrea Chénier” at the Vienna State Opera and “La Bohème” at the San Francisco Opera. Since then, his career has taken him to the world’s most prestigious opera houses, including the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Opéra National de Paris, Teatro Real in Madrid, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, La Scala in Milan, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. At the Salzburg Festival, he has conducted “Tosca” and “Andrea Chénier,” as well as concert performances of “Manon Lescaut,” “Lucrezia Borgia,” and “I Capuleti e i Montecchi.” In 2022, he served as Music Director of the Arena di Verona Festival. He maintains a close collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where since his 1998 debut he has conducted nearly 500 performances, including “Il trovatore,” “La Bohème,” “Aida,” “Turandot,” “Rigoletto,” and “Lucia di Lammermoor.” His recording Verismo (2009) with Renée Fleming received a Grammy Award, and Romantic Arias (2008) with Jonas Kaufmann was honored with a Diapason d’Or. At the Vienna State Opera, where he has been an honorary member since 2019, he has conducted a wide range of works from the Italian and French repertoire, as well as galas and festival concerts. At the Zurich Opera House, his recent performances have included “La traviata,” “Otello,” “La Bohème,” “Manon,” “Simon Boccanegra,” “La rondine,” “Messa da Requiem,” and “Tosca.”

Christian Spuck is from Marburg and was trained at the John Cranko School in Stuttgart. He began his dance career with Jan Lauwers’ Needcompany and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s ensemble "Rosas". In 1995 he joined the Stuttgart Ballet and served as the company’s resident choreographer from 2001 to 2012. In Stuttgart, he created fifteen world premieres, including the narrative ballets "Lulu. Eine Monstretragödie" after Frank Wedekind, "Der Sandmann", and "Das Fräulein von S." after E.T.A. Hoffmann. In addition, Christian Spuck has worked with numerous prominent ballet companies across Europe and the USA. For the Royal Ballet of Flanders, he created "The Return of Ulysses" in 2006, and at the Norwegian National Ballet in Oslo, "Woyzeck" after Georg Büchner was premiered. His ballet "Die Kinder" at Aalto Ballett Essen was nominated for the Prix Benois de la Danse; the ballet "Leonce und Lena", also premiered in Essen and based on Georg Büchner, was taken up by the Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, Charlotte Ballet, USA, the Czech National Ballet in Prague, and the Stuttgart Ballet. The premiere of "Poppea//Poppea" for Gauthier Dance at Theaterhaus Stuttgart in 2010 was selected by Dance Europe magazine as one of the ten most successful dance productions worldwide and was awarded the German theater prize Der Faust 2011 as well as the Italian "Danza/Danza Award." Christian Spuck has also directed operas: following Gluck’s "Orphée et Euridice" at the Stuttgart State Opera, he staged Verdi’s "Falstaff" at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, as well as Berlioz’ "La damnation de Faust" and Wagner’s "The Flying Dutchman" at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. From 2012 to 2023, Christian Spuck was director of the Zürich Ballet. There he created choreographies for "Romeo and Juliet", "Leonce und Lena", "Woyzeck", "Der Sandmann", "Messa da Requiem", "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", "Sleeping Beauty", and "Monteverdi". The ballet "Anna Karenina", premiered in Zurich in 2014 and based on Leo Tolstoy, was added to the repertoire in Oslo, at the Moscow Stanislavski Theatre, by the Korean National Ballet, and the Bavarian State Ballet. In 2018, Spuck’s ballet "Winterreise" premiered in Zurich, earning him the Prix Benois de la Danse in 2019. In 2019, the Zürich Ballet staged Helmut Lachenmann’s "Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern", recognized as "Production of the Year" and "Company of the Year" by tanz magazine. For the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre, he created the ballet "Orlando" after Virginia Woolf in 2021. His "Messa da Requiem" was not only invited to the Adelaide Festival in Australia but also adopted by Het Nationale Oper & Ballet Amsterdam and the Finnish National Ballet. Since the beginning of the 2023/24 season, Christian Spuck has been the artistic director of the Staatsballett Berlin.

Christian Schmidt studied stage design with Erich Wonder at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In 1992, he collaborated for the first time with Claus Guth, leading to an intensive artistic partnership. He has since designed sets and costumes for numerous Guth productions, including "Iphigénie en Tauride" and "Le nozze di Figaro" at the Salzburg Festival, "The Flying Dutchman" at the Bayreuth Festival, "Fierrabras", "Radamisto", "Ariane et Barbe-Bleue", "Tristan und Isolde", and "Parsifal" at the Zurich Opera House, as well as Mozart’s "Lucio Silla" at the Vienna Festival Weeks. The team has also gained recognition for world premieres, including Czernowin’s "Pnima" and Staud’s "Berenice" at the Munich Biennale, Ruzicka’s "Celan" in Dresden, Oehring’s "Unsichtbar Land" in Basel, and Czernowin’s "Heart Chamber" at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. For Hans Neuenfels’ productions of Zemlinsky’s "Der König Kandaules" at the Vienna Volksoper (1997) and "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" in Stuttgart (1998), Schmidt created the award-winning designs. In 2003, Opernwelt named him "Set Designer of the Year" and in 2005 "Costume Designer of the Year". He received the Rolf-Mares-Preis in 2006 for the set of "Simon Boccanegra" in Hamburg. In 2010, he worked for the first time with Christof Loy ("Die lustige Witwe" in Geneva). For Christian Spuck, he created the sets for Gluck’s "Orphée et Eurydice" in Stuttgart and for "Romeo and Juliet" and "Messa da Requiem" in Zurich. Since 2011, he has also collaborated with Andreas Homoki and, together with him, directed the Zurich "Ring of the Nibelung" from 2022 to 2024.

Emma Ryott is from England and works internationally as a costume and set designer. Since 2003, she has collaborated with Christian Spuck in ballet and opera. Their joint ballet projects include "The Little Match Girl", "Winterreise", "Messa da Requiem", "Anna Karenina", and "Romeo and Juliet" in Zurich; "Lulu. Eine Monstretragödie" and "Das Fräulein von S." in Stuttgart; "Woyzeck" in Oslo and Zurich; "Leonce und Lena" in Montreal, Stuttgart, Zurich, and Prague; "Der Sandmann" in Stuttgart and Zurich; and "The Return of Ulysses" in Antwerp. In opera, they have worked on "The Flying Dutchman" and "La damnation de Faust" at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, "Falstaff" in Wiesbaden, and "Orfeo ed Euridice" in Stuttgart. Other opera productions include "Mathis der Maler" at the Theater an der Wien, "Manon Lescaut" at the English National Opera, "Otello" at the Salzburg Festival, "La damnation de Faust" and "The Great Gatsby" at the Semperoper Dresden, "Marco Polo" at the Guangzhou Opera, "Das Rheingold" and "Die Walküre" at the Longborough Festival, "La bohème" at the Copenhagen Opera Festival, "Roméo et Juliette" in Malmö and at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, and "Orfeo" at the Opéra du Rhin. Their theater work has taken them from the Royal Shakespeare Company through Toronto and the National Theatre London to London’s West End and the New York Broadway. For the globally broadcast 2020 New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic, Emma Ryott designed the ballet costumes. Additional ballet projects include "Cinderella" at the Finnish National Ballet, as well as Christian Spuck’s "Orlando" and Yuri Possokhov’s "The Seagull" at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre.

Martin Gebhardt was lighting designer and master electrician for John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet. From 2002 onward he collaborated with Heinz Spoerli and Ballett Zürich. Ballet productions of both companies took him to renowned theatres across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. At Zurich Opera House he created the lighting design for productions by Jürgen Flimm, David Alden, Jan Philipp Gloger, Grischa Asagaroff, Matthias Hartmann, David Pountney, Moshe Leiser/Patrice Caurier, Damiano Michieletto, and Achim Freyer. At the Salzburg Festival he designed the lighting for "La bohème" and for a new version of Spoerli’s "Der Tod und das Mädchen". Since the 2012/13 season Martin Gebhardt has been Head of Lighting at Zurich Opera House. He maintains a close collaboration with choreographer Christian Spuck (including "Winterreise", "Nussknacker und Mausekönig", "Messa da Requiem", "Anna Karenina", "Woyzeck", "Der Sandmann", "Leonce und Lena", "Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern"). He has also worked as lighting designer for choreographers Edward Clug (including "Strings", "Le Sacre du printemps" and "Faust" in Zurich), Alexei Ratmansky, Wayne McGregor, Marco Goecke, and Douglas Lee. He collaborated with Christoph Marthaler and Anna Viebrock on Handel’s "Sale" and Rossini’s "Il viaggio a Reims" in Zurich as well as on "Lulu" at the Hamburg State Opera, and with Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito at the Grand Théâtre de Genève for "Les Huguenots". In 2023 he designed the lighting for Spuck’s ballet "Bovary" at Staatsballett Berlin and in 2024 for Rossini’s "Tancredi" at the Bregenz Festival. He was also the lighting designer for Cathy Marston’s "Atonement" at Zurich Opera House.

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 Salzburg Mozarteum. From 1983 to 1986, he was Kapellmeister of the Vienna Boys’ Choir. During this time, he led the ensemble in Vienna and on tours throughout Europe, South Africa, Canada, and the USA. Starting in 1986, Ernst Raffelsberger served as Chorus Director and Kapellmeister at the Landestheater Salzburg (participating in the Salzburg Mozart Week and the Salzburg Festival). In 1989, he moved to the theater in Freiburg im Breisgau as Chorus Director and Kapellmeister. Since autumn 1993, Ernst Raffelsberger has been engaged as Chorus Director at the Zurich Opera House. By now, he has overseen around 150 premieres and countless revivals, collaborating 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. Beginning in the summer of 2012, he additionally started a 10-year tenure as Chorus Director of the Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus at the Salzburg Festival. Here, he successfully collaborated with, among others, Riccardo Muti, Mariss Jansons, and Sir Simon Rattle. After concluding this work with the 2021 festival summer, he has once again been responsible—since 2025 and at the request of Maestro Muti—for the choral preparation for his festival concerts in Salzburg.

Numerous CD and DVD recordings document his work in both Zurich and Salzburg.

Michael Küster is from Germany. After studying German studies, art, and speech science at the University of Halle, he worked as a presenter, author, and speaker at various broadcasting stations in Germany. There, he hosted numerous classical music programs and live broadcasts of major concert events, including those from the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Semperoper Dresden, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus.
Since 2002, he has been a dramaturg at the Zurich Opera House, working with directors such as Matthias Hartmann, David Alden, Robert Carsen, Moshe Leiser/Patrice Caurier, Damiano Michieletto, David Pountney, Johannes Schaaf, and Graham Vick.
As dramaturg of Ballett Zürich, Michael Küster has collaborated since 2012 with Cathy Marston, Marco Goecke, Marcos Morau, Kim Brandstrup, Edward Clug, Alexei Ratmansky, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, and Hans van Manen. Together with Christian Spuck, he worked on productions including «Winterreise» («Prix Benois de la Danse»), «Romeo and Juliet», «Messa da Requiem», and «The Sleeping Beauty».
At La Scala in Milan, Michael Küster was dramaturg for Matthias Hartmann’s opera productions of «Der Freischütz», «Idomeneo», and «The Queen of Spades».

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.