FEDORA -

Nicolas Stemann

Short Bio

Nicolas Stemann, stage director and co-librettist of “Kein Licht”, winner of the FEDORA - ROLF LIEBERMANN Prize for Opera 2016, is one of the leading stage directors of new operatic works premiered over the last seven years (in terms of quantity of productions directed) in the world (source: Operabase, 2023).

Nicolas Stemann started out mainly making music and playing in various bands, and although he has never given up on music, he then studied philosophy and finally theatre direction in Hamburg and Vienna. Since his beginnings with his independent company and his collaboration with the dance company El Colegio del Cuerpo in Cartagena/ Colombia, Stemann has worked in all the major theatres of the German-speaking world, and has repeatedly been invited to international festivals. He has an exclusive working relationship with Nobel prize winner Elfriede Jelinek. To this day, Stemann’s constant motivation is to bring into contact the contradictory, irreconcilable and yet simultaneous movements and trends of our contemporary world. Even the media he uses are subject to constant variation: as well as music, he is constantly opening up the theatre to other forms of art, as in his Faust I & II. And it is precisely with this Faust, which perfectly demonstrates his ability to infuse canonical texts with playful thoughts and feelings that are relevant to people today, that he will be making his first appearance in Zurich. This is where Nicolas Stemann will now be taking up the position of artistic director together with Benjamin von Blomberg. He hopes, in doing so, to expand the field of what is considered as art, and that he will be able to extend the mingling of different art forms that he is constantly experimenting with in his productions, into this theatre – with relish, playfulness, and without fear. And with his eyes open to the many voiced political dislocations of our time.

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