The three finalist teams will stage Acts II–III of their production concepts for Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo.
Saturday, June 28, 2025
Schauspielhaus
| 10:30-11:15 | Opening Ceremony |
| 11:30-12:10 | Team Maria Chagina (RUS) / Anna Agafonova (ISR) / Sören Sarbeck (DEU) |
| L’Orfeo. The Myth Next Door | |
| 12:15-12:45 | Speakers’ Corner (Salon, 1st floor) |
| 16:30-17:10 | Team Franciska Éry (HUN) / Peter Butler (GBR) / Mathieu Cabanes (FRA) |
| Orfeo – Recording in Session | |
| 17:15-17:45 | Speakers’ Corner (Salon, 1st floor) |
Sunday, Jun 29, 2025
Schauspielhaus
| 10:30-11:10 | Team Giorgio Pesenti (ITA) / Giulia Bruschi (ITA) / Riccardo Mainetti (ITA) / Elena Patacchini (ITA) / Matteo Castiglioni (ITA) |
| Orfeo. The End of Things | |
| 11:15-11:45 | Speakers’ Corner (Salon, 1st floor) |
| 12:30-13:00 | Award Ceremony |
In between the performances, the Speakers’ Corner offers space for dialogue: the final teams answer questions from the jury and the audience, providing insights into their artistic visions.
The Concept Area complements the festival experience by showing the creative process – from submission to stage production, with set design models, creation sneak-peaks, and team profiles.
The opening ceremony of the final weekend will be accompanied by music from the Mandacaru quartet and features a poetry slam by Tommy & Annika.
Forró is the captivating sound of Brazil’s Northeast – vibrant, danceable, and full of emotion. Mandacaru brings this unique style to the stage with accordion, zabumba, fiddle, triangle, and vocals. Named after the state plant of Pernambuco, the band invites you to dance: their passionate rhythms and melodies speak of love, longing, and the joy of life, creating an atmosphere that’s both energetic and intimate. Mandacaru is the first Forró band from Graz and a cornerstone of the city’s growing Forró scene.
Members:
Katia Moling: violin, vocals
Christine Moik: triangle, vocals
Jan Moling: zabumba, pandeiro
Tobias Kochseder: accordion
“So what is art?
Entertainment? Bread and circuses?
Who is art? And where is art?
And if so, how many?
Can art be compared?
We’d like to take the question further:
Is art a competition?
Then let’s fail together.”
An attempt to define art — and the joy of failing at it. With a big dose of “RING” and don’t look back!
Jossi Wieler, Artistic Director of RING AWARD
Ulrich Lenz, Intendant Oper Graz
Andrea Vilter, Intendant Schauspielhaus Graz
Michael Schilhan, Intendant Next Liberty
Wolfgang Hülbig, Managing Director, art + event | Theaterservice Graz
Georg Schulz, Rector of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz
15 renowned international artistic directors and music theatre experts:
Jossi Wieler, Stage Director, Head of Jury
Jan Henric Bogen, General Artistic Director Konzert und Theater St. Gallen
Renata Borowska-Juszczyńska, General Manager Teatr Wielki Poznan
Valérie Chevalier, Directrice Générale Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier
Klaus Grünberg, Set and Light Designer
Tatjana Gürbaca, Stage Director
Marlene Hahn, Head of Dramaturgy Oper Leipzig
Stefan Herheim, Stage Director, Intendant Theater an der Wien
Marko Hribernik, Conductor, Director General of Opera SNG Opera in balet Ljubljana
Ulrich Lenz, Dramaturg, Intendant Oper Graz
Andrea Moses, Stage Director, Artistic Director of Opera Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar
Annette Murschetz, Set Designer, Professor at University of Music and Performing Arts Graz
Elisabeth Sobotka, Intendant Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Andrea Vilter, Dramaturg, Intendant Schauspielhaus Graz
Sibylle Wallum, Costume Designer
1st Prize RING AWARD, a stage production at one of the stages of Oper Graz
2nd Prize Province of Styria Prize, EUR 2.500
3rd Prize Bühnen Graz Prize, EUR 2.500
Additional Special Prizes for stage productions may be awarded by several theatres and opera houses.
Often referred to as the “first opera,” this favola in musica was first performed in 1607 and remains a central part of the music theatre repertoire, continuously reinterpreted on stages around the world. The myth of the artist Orpheus, who moves both living and non-living nature with his song and descends into the underworld out of love for Eurydice, has inspired since antiquity.
How will this ancient narrative be reinterpreted by the emerging voices of the RING AWARD?
Prologue: The Muse of Music appears and promises the audience a Favola in Musica – a tale framed and elevated by music.
Act I: Orpheus and Eurydice, deeply in love, celebrate their wedding surrounded by shepherds and nymphs. They call upon Hymen, the god of marriage, to bless their union.
Act II: As Eurydice leaves with her companions to gather flowers for the wedding bouquet, Orpheus stays behind in joyful company. Suddenly, Sylvia arrives with tragic news: Eurydice has been bitten by a snake and died with Orpheus’ name on her lips. Devastated, Orpheus resolves to descend into the underworld to bring his beloved Eurydice back.
Act III: Hope leads Orpheus to the threshold of the underworld. With his enchanting music, he puts Charon, the gatekeeper and ferryman, to sleep and is able to cross the Styx. The souls of the dead, too, are moved and permit him to continue on his way.
Act IV: Moved by love, Proserpina implores Pluto to release Eurydice. The lord of the underworld consents – but only if Orpheus refrains from looking back at her until they reach the upper world. Hand in hand, they begin their ascent. Yet, gripped by fear or longing, Orpheus turns and with a sorrowful cry, Eurydice fades into the shadows forever.
Act V: Orpheus mourns his lost love, and only the echo answers his cries. Taking pity on his son, Apollo carries Orpheus and Eurydice into the stars. On Earth, the singer’s love and song are praised for all eternity.
Orpheus and Eurydice have spent a long life together and have grown old side-by-side. Now Eurydice has died. Orpheus finds himself alone in his apartment, isolating himself from his environment. Only his grown-up son Apollo tries to maintain contact with the increasingly inaccessible man.
An old melody begins to haunt Orpheus’s mind, taking him back to his youth. Long-deceased friends appear and celebrate the wedding of Eurydice and Orpheus. But the veil of aging covers all; the celebration turns into a funeral procession. Orpheus’s apartment transforms into the underworld, becoming a hell for him. The narrow spaces expand into an endless landscape in which the frail man finds himself helpless. The river Styx begins to flood the apartment. On its shore a lost diver sits, whom the ship’s crew may well have presumed dead. Searching for an exit, Orpheus sings out into the void, but only the echo responds. Will a ship come to ferry him across the waters?
Orpheus as the eternal myth of aging—within the 60 square meters of the apartment next door and in the inner infinity of loneliness.
Director: Maria Chagina
Set and costume design: Anna Agafonova
Dramaturgy: Sören Sarbeck
Maria Chagina and Sören Sarbeck have been working together since their studies at the August Everding Theatre Academy in Munich, where they developed the opera Invitation to a Beheading together. For L’Orfeo, the stage and costume designer Anna Agafonova joins their team. Together they are looking for a music theatre that draws on everyday experiences and is located at the transition between drama and opera.
Anna Agafonova graduated from the Moscow Art Theatre School and has worked in various theatres in Russia, including the Gogol Centre and the Moscow Youth Theatre. She currently lives and works in Israel.
After graduating from the Moscow GITIS, Maria Chagina staged Orff’s The Moon in Yakutsk and an evening about Carola Neher for the human rights organisation Memorial in Moscow before emigrating to Germany. She is a fellow of the Akademie Musiktheater heute.
Dramaturg and librettist Sören Sarbeck is currently engaged at Theater Lübeck after a traineeship at Bayerische Staatsoper.
Musical Director & Piano: Ihor Kolomiiets
Orfeo: Peter Grdadolnik, SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana
Messagiera: Justina Vaitkutė, University of Music and Performing Arts Graz
Pastore: Kevin King, University of Music and Performing Arts Graz
Speranza: Corina Koller, Oper Graz
Caronte: Camilo Olguín, University of Music and Performing Arts Graz
Old Orfeo: Gerhard Balluch
Extras from Oper Graz:
Alina Fedorova, Antonija Ferencina, Gernot Gölles, Gerrit Langer, Klara Prexl, Martin Stoff
Voice of Apollo: Luca Skupin
Stage Manager: Otto Kolleritsch
Assistant Director: Jasmin Karami
Tony is a superstar singer. He is married to Sarah, who is also a singer. They work together and tour the world, but their marriage is in crisis.
We meet them at a recording session where they are booked together to sing the parts of Orfeo and Euridice in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. La Musica, the sound engineer, is running the session. But Tony is wobbly – he self-medicates to keep his anxiety at bay, he is unfaithful to his wife to feel desired, and he is terrified of being overshadowed by Sarah. As the session progresses, he finds it harder to distinguish his ‘trip’ from reality, finding himself in his own personal underworld, where he has to face his insecurities and save his marriage.
We believe that the archetype of the male hero is in crisis. Gone are the days where we can tell the story of a man singing about how much he loves his wife without ever hearing from the woman herself; where we can follow the hero’s journey without understanding the person he is trying to save. In Monteverdi’s opera, Euridice has 4 lines in total. Where is she in this opera? In our recording studio we invite our audience to ask the question: who gets to have a voice?
Director: Franciska Éry
Set and costume design: Peter Butler
Lighting design: Mathieu Cabanes
We’re artists from Hungary, France and the UK, interested in spatial relations and an interdisciplinary approach to opera.
Hungarian director Franciska Éry puts cultural belonging and the audience experience in the forefront of her work. Past projects have received the OffWestend Award for Best Opera Production, Highlights of Hungary, and nominated for the FEDORA prize.
Peter Butler is a visual artist specialising in set and costume design. Credits include Shut Up I’m Dreaming (National Theatre London), A Taste Of Honey (Royal Exchange Manchester), The Shape of Things (Park 200). He won the Linbury Prize for Stage Design and nominated for the Stage Debut Award.
Mathieu Cabanes is a French lighting designer. Credits include La Belle au Bois Dormant (Opéra National de Lyon), Don Pasquale, Le Climat, Séisme (Opéra National de Montpellier), and several productions by Bob Wilson. He works with Concept K, Lab212, Maison Hermès, MISK Art Institute, Saudi Arabia and the Times Art Museum, China.
Musical Director & Piano: Eunyoung Joo
Tony Auer / Orfeo: Markus Butter, Oper Graz
Pastore: Martin Fournier, Oper Graz
Messagiera: Lora Pavletić, SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana
Speranza: Polona Kopač Trontelj, SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana
Caronte: Vladimir Jakšić, SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana
Extras from Oper Graz:
Sarah Auer / Euridice: Elisabeth Besser
LM / La Musica: Heidrun Steidl
Stage Manager: Borut Marter
Assistant Director: Nora Peierl
Consultant Sound Design: Lev Toystore
As Europeans, we are not accustomed to early, sudden deaths, such as Euridice’s in the myth. Europe is increasingly aging, with more than 90 million elderly people and many of them receiving inadequate assistance. The Euridice we release into the realm of Pluto could be anybody’s older parent. We are Orfeo as this myth urgently calls to reflect on our present relationship with death.
In our narrative, the hero is an old man forced to face a double conflict: on the one hand, to overcome the death of the person he loved all his life, and on the other, alone, locked up in a retirement home, forced to deal with his impending death, with the inability to be independent. He is a man split in two: his body is aging, but his voice still sings for love. Isolated and surrounded by strangers in uniform, Orfeo seeks refuge in the past. In the retirement home, he forgets Euridice’s death and makes a plan to escape and find his lost love. The retirement home turns into a baroque theatre where Orfeo stages his final journey. Like in a fairy tale, the hero flees. Outside, he encounters the city: a modern, fast, consumerist world. Orfeo accepts the journey into contemporary hell and finds Euridice. With the fiercest form of love, she helps Orfeo to turn around. By looking back and accepting life Orfeo will organize his memories and surrender to the end of things.
Director: Giorgio Pesenti
Set and costume design: Giulia Bruschi
Set design: Riccardo Mainetti
Dramaturgy: Elena Patacchini
Video design & Sound design: Matteo Castiglioni
As a team, we want to explore the social and political power of musical theatre to question our times.
Giorgio Pesenti, director and pianist, is Daniele Abbado’s assistant, with whom he worked in theatres such as La Scala and La Fenice. He cofounded Opera Popolare, that combines social and theatrical issues.
Giulia Bruschi, set and costume designer, trained in Architecture at Politecnico of Milan and in Set and Costume Design at Brera Academy.
Riccardo Mainetti, set designer, trained in Theatre Design at Brera Academy in Milan. Together, they designed Aida in Teatro Sociale Como with a social choir and a collaborative workshop process.
Elena Patacchini, playwright and dramaturg, finalist at the 2023 Biennale Teatro. She worked in theatre such as Teatro Stabile del Veneto and Teatro Nazionale di Genova. She is cofounder of Opera Popolare.
Matteo Castiglioni, composer and multimedia artist, worked at Opera di Roma and at Biennale di Venezia, focusing on live-visuals and site-specific projects.
Musical Director & Piano: Stefan Birnhuber / Naor Shani
Orfeo: Felix Heuser, Alumni of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz
Pastore: Edvard Strah, SNG Opera and Ballet Ljubljana
Messagiera: Neira Muhić, Oper Graz
Speranza: Beatriz Gaudencio Ramos, University of Music and Performing Arts Graz
Caronte: Will Frost, Oper Graz
Old Orfeo: Ruggero Dondi
Extras from Oper Graz:
Young Euridice: Valentina Butter
Old Euridice: Herta Lenz
Stage Manager: Roland Fischer
Assistant Director: Markus Schauermann
We are proud that RING AWARD 25 meets the criteria of the Austrian Ecolabel for Green Events!
By doing so, we are sending a strong signal for sustainability in the cultural sector and are furthermore proving that environmental responsibility and artistic excellence can go hand in hand.
Click HERE for more information about the RING AWARD as a Green Event.
art + event | Theaterservice Graz
Wolfgang Hülbig, CEO
Deborah Siebenhofer, Project Managment
Maria Ohrenstein, Project Assistant & Sponsorship
Birgit Gall, Marketing & Public Relations
Ingo Reinhardt, Green Event Coordinator
Workshops art + event | Theaterservice Graz
Josef Loibner, Head of Set Decoration Workshop
Jörg Frank, Production Support Set Decoration Workshop
Claudia Goll, Head of Costume Workshop
Teresa Joham, Production Coordinator
Technical Team Schauspielhaus Graz
Christoph Steffen, Technical Director
Gerald Sitzenfrey, Stage Manager
Thomas Obran, Martin Hauer, Stage Supervisors
Thomas Trummer, Head of Lighting and Video
Martin Arnold, Head of Sound
Philipp Glanzner, Costume Production Manager
Alexandra Scherpink, Head of Props
Cindy Geyer, Chief Make-up Artist
Magreth Kahr, Head of Dressers
Christian Scheibelsteiner, House Coordinator
Technical Team – Rehearsal Support Oper Graz
Ivica Fulir, Technical Director
Sebastian Weiss, Production Coordinator
Marc Maier, Hannes Peindl, Gerald Trummer, Stage Technology Management
Manfred Lamprecht, Jubal Arenas Criado, Matthias Feigl, Rehearsal Support
Technical Team – Rehearsal Support Next Liberty
Richard Kornberger, Technical Director
Andreas Knoll, Michael Tanweber, Christian Rieger, Christian Kapaun, Laura Mandler, Stage Technology
Achim Zeman, Sound Technology
Media
Susanne Hassler-Smith, Photography
Britta Lang, Camera and Video
Rodarich, Social Media
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Photos: Susanne Hassler-Smith
