Wie du warst! Wie du bist!

Music theater by Simon Steen-Andersen

From 20. September 2025 until 11. July 2026

Dates & Tickets
  • Duration :
    approx. 1 H. 45 Min. Without intermission.
  • More information:
    The premiere celebration on 20 September 2025 will take place afterwards in the box office foyer.
    Surtitles in English for spoken text.
    Surtitles in German and English for sung passages.
Production:
Simon Steen-Andersen

Simon Steen-Andersen

Simon Steen-Andersen, geboren 1976 in Dänemark, ist ein in Berlin lebender Komponist und Regisseur mit einem transdisziplinären Ansatz in Bezug auf Musik und Theater. Seine Werke bewegen sich zwischen Musik, Performance, Theater, Installation, Choreografie und Film. Simon Steen-Andersen wurde mit zahlreichen Preisen ausgezeichnet, darunter der Reumert Award («Oper des Jahres» in Dänemark, 2024), der Carl Preis (2024, 2020, 2015), der SWR-Orchesterpreis (2019, 2014), der Mauricio-Kagel-Musikpreis und der Ernst von Siemens-Komponistenpreis (2017), der Musikpreis des Nordischen Rates (2014) und der Carl-Nielsen-Ehrenpreis (2013). Simon Steen-Andersen studierte Komposition bei Rasmussen, Spahlinger, Valverde und Sørensen in Aarhus, Freiburg, Buenos Aires und Kopenhagen (1998–2006). Seit 2016 ist Steen-Andersen Mitglied der Akademie der Künste Berlin und seit 2018 unterrichtet er Komposition und Musiktheater an der Hochschule der Künste Bern.

Wie du warst! Wie du bist!20 / 21 / 25 Sept / 2 / 3 Oct 2025 / 4 / 5 / 10 / 11 Jul 2026
Musical Director:
Stefan Schreiber

Stefan Schreiber

Stefan Schreiber was born in Duisburg and is a pianist and conductor specializing in contemporary concert and opera repertoire. Following positions as head of musical studies at the Staatsoper Hannover (2001–2006) and the Staatsoper Stuttgart (2006–2012, 2015–2018), he has developed a close collaboration with composers such as Hans-Joachim Hespos, Helmut Lachenmann (world premiere of GOT LOST, Württembergischer Kunstverein 2011; invited to the Bern Biennale 2014), Chaya Czernowin, and Ming Tsao.

His most recent work includes, among others, “The Seven Deadly Sins / Seven Heavenly Sins” by Kurt Weill and Peaches at the Staatsoper Stuttgart (2019/20), Franz Schubert’s “Winterreise” (in the orchestral version by Hans Zender) in collaboration with video artist Arnout Mik (Staatsoper Stuttgart, 2020), the spatial realization of the score of Luigi Nono’s “Intolleranza 2021” in collaboration with Johannes Harneit (Wuppertaler Bühnen 2021/22), as well as Mauricio Kagel’s “Staatstheater” (directed by Lydia Steier and Matthias Piro) at Theater Luzern at the beginning of the 2021/22 season.

He appeared at the Bayreuth Festival with Simon Steen-Andersen – including the staged concert “Spinne, Schwester!” (Haus Wahnfried, 2019) and the video work “The Loop of the Nibelung” (2020). CD recordings with Kairos document his collaboration with Ming Tsao (Die Geisterinsel, 2014; Plus Minus, 2017).

Wie du warst! Wie du bist!20 / 21 / 25 Sept / 2 / 3 Oct 2025 / 4 / 5 / 10 / 11 Jul 2026
Dramaturgy:
Roman Reeger

Roman Reeger

Roman Reeger studied Historical Musicology and Law at the University of Hamburg. He gained his first theatre experience as an intern and assistant at the theatres in Oldenburg and Kiel, as well as at the Staatsoper and the Schaubühne in Berlin. In 2013, he joined the dramaturgy department of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. From 2020 to 2025, he was a senior dramaturg and member of the opera management team at Theater Basel. Guest engagements have taken him to the Baden-Baden Easter Festival and the Munich Biennale for New Music Theatre, among others. He has collaborated with directors such as Christoph Marthaler, Herbert Fritsch, Thom Luz, Benedikt von Peter, Philippe Quesne, Claus Guth, Andreas Kriegenburg, Anna Bergmann, Eva-Maria Höckmayr, and Jürgen Flimm, and has overseen world premieres of works by composers including Jörg Widmann, Oscar Strasnoy, Lucia Ronchetti, Manos Tsangaris, Beat Furrer, Hèctor Parra, and Herbert Grönemeyer. As a freelance author, he has contributed to specialist journals, exhibition catalogues, and CD booklets, regularly gives lectures, and has taught as a lecturer at the Berlin University of the Arts. Since the 2025/26 season, he has been Chief Dramaturg at the Zurich Opera House.

Tannhäuser21 / 24 / 27 Jun / 2 / 5 / 8 / 11 Jul 2026 Hänsel und Gretel16 / 20 / 23 / 28 / 30 Nov / 2 / 4 / 11 / 16 / 18 / 21 Dec 2025 / 2 / 24 / 25 / 31 Jan 2026 Scylla et Glaucus27 / 29 / 31 Mar / 2 / 6 / 30 Apr / 2 May 2026 Wie du warst! Wie du bist!20 / 21 / 25 Sept / 2 / 3 Oct 2025 / 4 / 5 / 10 / 11 Jul 2026

Cast


Mezzosopran Liliana Nikiteanu

Liliana Nikiteanu

Liliana Nikiteanu studied at the Conservatory in Bucharest. She received her first permanent engagement in 1986 at the Musiktheater Galati. She has won numerous awards, and in 2000, Opernwelt named her "Best Young Singer of the Year." Her repertoire includes over 80 roles, which she has performed in Zurich, where she has been an ensemble member since 1991, as well as in other opera houses, including Octavian ("Der Rosenkavalier") at the Bastille, the Vienna and Hamburg State Operas, Ježibaba ("Rusalka") in Montreal, Sesto ("La clemenza di Tito") in Dresden, Rosina ("Il barbiere di Siviglia") in Vienna and Munich, Dorabella ("Così fan tutte") in Dresden, Munich, Salzburg, and Aix-en-Provence, Fjodor ("Boris Godunow") in Salzburg, Margarethe ("La damnation de Faust") in Brussels, and Dulcinée ("Don Quichotte") at Theater an der Wien. In Zurich, she has performed all Mozart roles of her fach as well as roles such as Ljubascha ("Die Zarenbraut"), Nurse (Dukas’ "Ariane et Barbe-Bleue"), and Fricka ("Das Rheingold"). As a concert singer, her repertoire ranges from Bach to Berio. In Bamberg, she sang Berenice by Haydn under Adam Fischer, in Paris Berlioz’ "Les nuits d’été" under Heinz Holliger, in Copenhagen Verdi’s Requiem, and in Tel Aviv and Haifa Bruckner’s Te Deum under Zubin Mehta. Conductors who have shaped her include Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Claudio Abbado, Fabio Luisi, Franz Welser-Möst, John Eliot Gardiner, René Jacobs, and Philippe Jordan. Most recently, in Zurich, she has performed roles including Tisbe ("La Cenerentola"), Praškowia ("Die lustige Witwe"), Mama ("Wir pfeifen auf den Gurkenkönig"), Sir Pumpkin ("In 80 Tagen um die Welt"), as well as in the music-theater evening created for her, "Wie du warst! Wie du bist!"

Le nozze di Figaro24 / 29 Jan / 1 / 5 / 7 / 10 / 14 Feb 2026 Wie du warst! Wie du bist!20 / 21 / 25 Sept / 2 / 3 Oct 2025 / 4 / 5 / 10 / 11 Jul 2026
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Azra Ramic, Clarinet
Antonio Jiménez Marín, Trombone
Romane Bouffioux, Percussion
Melda Umur, Double bass
Francesco Palmieri, Guitar

Abstract

“Time, it is a strange thing,” sings the Marschallin in “Der Rosenkavalier”, “sometimes I hear it flowing.” At the start of the new season, Simon Steen-Andersen sets out in search of this “sound of time.” His journey leads him deep into the understage of the Zurich Opera House and into the interwoven stories of the house itself and its younger neighbor, the Bernhard Theater.

At the center of this exploration stands Liliana Nikiteanu, a permanent ensemble member of the Opera House for 34 years. Once celebrated as the youthful lover Octavian, she now appears herself like a Marschallin of real life: a figure of wisdom and reflection, looking back on an extraordinary career.

Steen-Andersen playfully intertwines echoes of the opera season with the characteristic formats of the Bernhard Theater. Like in a fever dream, the boundaries blur between fiction and reality, past and present, opera and life, as the performance drifts back and forth between the Opera House’s understage and the subconscious of its longest-serving member.

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Trailer