Maria Chagina, director
Anna Agafonova, set and costume design
Sören Sarbeck, dramaturgy
Our L’ORFEO is an eternal myth taking place in the apartment next door.
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.
Caterina Cianfarini, director
Julia Kraushaar, set design
Karoline Gundermann, costume design
Julia Jordà Stoppelhaar, dramaturgy
Our L’ORFEO is: “Euridice looks back”
In addition to productions at the Lucerne Theatre and the Philharmonie Luxembourg, director Caterina Cianfarini has staged several productions at the Basel Theatre, including Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Anda Kryezius’ world premiere Persona as a co-production at the Gare du Nord in Basel, as well as co-directing Richard Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen with Benedikt von Peter. The freelance set designer for theatre and film Julia Kraushaar was also employed as an assistant set designer at Theater Basel. She recently worked as an assistant set designer on the SRF series “Neumatt”. Karoline Gundermann also moved to Basel, where she works as a freelance costume designer, most recently as artistic assistant to Katrin Lea Tag, where she was responsible for the costume design for Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung. Julia Jordà Stoppelhaar was employed as a dramaturg at Lucerne Theatre. In 2021, she joined Komische Oper Berlin as a curator, dramaturg and librettist and currently works freelance.
Franciska Ery, director
Peter Butler, set and costume design
Mathieu Cabanes, lighting design
When thinking about our concept for L’ORFEO, we had two thoughts in mind:
That the story is introduced by La Musica, and so we must put music, the process of music-making and sounds in the forefront
And that Euridice has 4 lines in total in the entire piece
…Where is she in this opera?
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.
Richard Glöckner, director
Heike Hümpfner, set and costume design
Anna Novotny, dramaturgy
Our L’ORFEO is the story of a dying woman: Euridice. Her story invites us all to enter into a dialogue about death and grief in our society and in our personal lives.
Richard Glöckner, Anna Novotny and Heike Hümpfner came together as a newly formed artistic team to develop a joint project idea for the RING AWARD. They worked purely digitally until the semifinal and met for the first time in person here in Graz. The three of them live in different places and work in different fields: Richard Glöckner studied singing at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and now works as a singer. He has also been developing his own music theatre projects for a long time. Heike Hümpfner studied architecture in Weimar and Vienna. She is currently a permanent assistant stage designer at the Theater in der Josefstadt, but is also active in various collectives. Anna Novotny studied theatre and musicology in her home city of Budapest. After working in dramaturgy and marketing at various theatres, she is now Head of Artistic Operations Office at Aalto Theatre Essen.
Marcel Kohler, director & set design
Benjamin Kohler, co-director & AI development
Anne Schartmann, co-set design
Natalie Soroko, costume design
Friedemann Slenzka, musical dramaturgy
For us, L’ORFEO means going back to the beginnings of music theatre and, from there, embarking on a personal, experimental search for an answer to the question of whether it is possible to bring back a loved one who has died.
We see the RING AWARD as an opportunity to put together a team that is working together for the first time in this constellation. Benjamin and Marcel met on the day Benjamin was born; they are brothers. When they were at primary school, Friedemann moved into their street in Mainz. At some point, all three ended up in Berlin, where Nati joined them from Lübeck, where she was born, and Anne, who had previously lived in Vienna for a long time. When we’re not sitting in the Sophieneck Pub in Berlin talking about L’Orfeo, Nati works as a permanent Costume Assistant at Staatsoper Berlin. Benjamin has now moved to Zurich because he is doing his doctorate in Data Science at the ETH. Anne is preparing a production with her former professor Anna Viebrock at Volksbühne. Friedemann plays 1st solo viola in the orchestra of Komische Oper. And Marcel is a member of the ensemble at Schaubühne in Berlin and has recently directed a play in an old glass factory in Lusatia. But by the time you read this, we’ll probably be in Graz and excited to present our concept.
Finn Nachfolger, director
Sidonia Helfenstein, set design
Anouk Hufschmid Hirschbühl, costume design
Selina Pfeiffer, video design
L’ORFEO is cross-generational. / L’ORFEO is not only a retrospective into our past.
We are Finn Nachfolger (they/them) as director and dramaturg, Anouk Hufschmid-Hirschbühl (she/her) in costume design, Sidonia Helfenstein (she/her) in set design and Selina Pfeiffer (she/her) as videographer. Our paths had us meet in Bern. Finn was studying Acting and Expanded Theatre whilst Anouk, Sidonia and Selina work or used to work at Theatre Bern after studying Costume and Theatre Design in Great Britain, architecture and film in Lucerne. We are connected by the shared interest to make opera tellable, relevant and experienceable and we want to creatively approach being human in all its facets, question our systems and make people communicate with each other.
Max Nattkämper, director
Elena Popova, set design
Sabrina Zinsmeister, costume design
Jurij Kowol, dramaturgy
For us, L’ORFEO is a story about the power of the human voice and its ability to weld people together into different kinds of communities through seduction. In our reading, the gift of song is linked to the question of its responsibility and of what happens when Orfeo is given absolute power.
Max Nattkämper studied Directing at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin. During his studies, he realised several productions with Elena Popova (Idomeneo, A Midsummernight’s Dream, La notte di un nevrastenico/Il segreto di Susanna). In addition to the established opera repertoire, he is interested in its connection to the theatre. Elena Popova completed her Stage and Costume Design studies at the Weißensee School of Art in Berlin. She worked as a Set Design Assistant with Nina Peller in productions by Constanza Macras for DorkyPark. Sabrina Zinsmeister studied Stage and Costume Design at the Weißensee School of Art. She designed costumes for Gas! and Barzakh at the HfS Ernst Busch, as well as the stage for L’enfant et les sortiléges/L`heure espagnole at the HfM Hanns Eisler. Jurij Kowol is studying Dramaturgy at the Bavarian Theatre Academy August Everding. There and at the Junge Oper Baden-Württemberg, he will be in charge of Written on Skin by G. Benjamin and R. Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos in the 2024/25 season.
Giorgio Pesenti, director
Giulia Bruschi, set and costume design
Riccardo Mainetti, set design
Elena Patacchini, dramaturgy
Matteo Castiglioni, video design
Our L’ORFEO is a story and a man. An old man.
Orfeo is an exile.
He’s a dreamer.
He’s a child.
Orfeo is a hero.
Or maybe he was.
Orfeo is nobody.
Orfeo, wait, is everyone.
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.
Victoria Stevens, director
Basia Bińkowska, set design
Charlotte Werkmeister, costume design
Lukas Eicher, video design
Alexander Schweiß, composition
Our L’ORFEO is a dialogue on agency, voice and identity in which male Monomyths are subverted and female forms combat their own erasure. Let the Cult of the Despairing Young Woman be disbanded.
Team Stevens x Bińkowska x Schweiß x Werkmeister x Eicher are an international group connected through their love of hybrid theatrical experiences where opera, immersive audio-visual technology and contemporary perspectives converge. South African director Victoria Stevens is interested in what builds us up and breaks us down. She explores the interplay between psychological realism and corporeality, where thoughts, memories and fears interact with the body. Basia Bińkowska is a Polish designer & scenographer focusing on visual dramaturgy that challenges how we perceive human stories across various contexts, landscapes and spaces. Alexander Schweiß composes between music and theatre: installations and sound performances are as central to his work as opera, theatre music or their composite forms. Costume designer Charlotte Werkmeister’s goal is to create authentic characters and tell their stories through textiles, materials and attention to aesthetic detail. For Lukas Eicher , light is the essence of colour and shade, and the absence of light can only be drawn by shaping it. This is the spirit through which he approaches his work as a film & lighting designer.
The following teams have reached excellent results and are semifinal-reserve-teams:
