Achim Freyer
set and costume designer, stage director and painter
The "Meisterschüler" of Bertolt Brecht was born in 1934 and before
he turned his attention toward the theater, where he has worked as stage
director, set and costume designer, he was educated as a painter. His
dramatic productions have been shown in the Berlin Schlosspark Theater,
the Schiller Theater in Berlin, the Berliner Ensemble (i.e. Hamlet)
and in the Burgtheater in Vienna (i.e. the Philip Glass trilogy, Ovid's
Metamorphosen, Woyzeck, Phaeton, Der Diener
zweier Herren 1997, and the world premiere of Die Eingeborene
1999).
His work in the opera has taken him to cities throughout Europe, including
Munich, Basel, Amsterdam, Vienna, Paris and Salzburg. In 1980 he directed
Weber's Der Freischütz in Stuttgart and in 1982 Mozart's Die
Zauberflöte in Hamburg, a production that has successfully gone
down in theater history and after celebrating twenty triumphant years,
whenever presented, still plays to sold-out houses. He interpreted this
work again for several other theaters, in Vienna in 1991, for the Salzburger
Festspiele in 1997 and in 2002 for both the Schwetzinger Festspiele
and the Opera National du Rhin in Strasburg. Further productions have
included Glück's Orfeo ed Euridice in 1982 at the Deutschen Oper
Berlin, Rossini's La Cenerentola in 1997 at the Wiener Volksoper,
Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in 1994 in Brussels and in 1996 he
created and staged theatrical scenes to Bach's h-moll-Messe for
the Schwetzinger Festspiele. In 1996 he also staged a production of
Mozart's Don Giovanni in Venice, which he restaged in 1998 for
the Schwetzinger Festspiele, Strasburg, Lisbon and Montpelier. In 1994
for his production of Turandot / Persephone in Venice, he received
the Italian Critic's Award for the best production of the year. For
the Wiener Festwochen in 1998/1999, he directed Monteverdi's L'Orfeo
(a co-production with the Bayerischen Staatsoper in Munich), and in
1999/2000 Schumann's Genoveva (a co-production with the Opera
Leipzig). In 2001 he staged the seldom performed Haydn opera L'anima
del filosofo for the Schwetzinger Festspiele and also created a
theatrical version of Verdi's Messa da Requiem for the Deutsche
Oper Berlin. In 2002, Freyer made his debut in the U.S.A. with a revised
version of his Bach's h-moll Messe performed at the Los Angeles
Opera.
Many world premieres of music theater pieces may be found among Achim
Freyer's collective works. In 1981 he staged the first performance of
the Philip Glass trilogy Satyagraha in Stuttgart, followed by
Echnaton in 1984, Einstein on the Beach in 1988, and in 1997 Das
Mädchen mit dem Schwefelhölzern by Helmut Lachenmann at the Staatsoper
Hamburg. In collaboration with the composer Dieter Schnebel, Freyer
created Körper-Sprache, Maulwerke and Vergänglichkeit
(Hamburg 1991) and Mayakowski's Tod-Totentanz which premiered
in 1998 at the Opera Leipzig. The world premiere of the Sciarrino opera,
Macbeth, a huge success, was originally performed at the Schwetzinger
Festspiele, and was later shown in Frankfurt, Graz and New York. Freyer's
most recent works have included the world premiere of Luca Francesconi's
Ballata at the Opera de la Monnaie in Brussels (Autumn 2002)
and a production of Strauss's Salome at the Deutschen Oper Berlin.
In 1999, Achim Freyer was awarded the theater prize presented annually
by the ITI (International Theater Institute). From 1976 until 1999,
Freyer held a professorship in stage design at the Hochschule der Künste
Berlin. His numerous art exhibits have brought him international acclaim.
His work has been shown in the Documenta in Kassel 1977 and 1987, as
well as in Berlin, Bonn, Brussels, Florence, Hamburg, Moscow, Munich,
Venice, Vienna and Tel Aviv. 1999 he was awarded the gold medal for
a retrospective of his work at the Quadriennale Prag.
In 1992, the Freyer-Ensemble was founded. Working together, Freyer
and the group have developed an absolutely unique "theater language",
and over a period of ten years they have created more than twenty different
pieces for the theater. The Freyer-Ensemble is always an integral part
in all of Achim Freyer's more extensive opera and dramatic theater productions.
Further Information: www.freyer-art.de
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