Siegfried

Orchester der Tiroler Festspiele Erl

Musik wächst aus der Begeisterung eines über die Jahre zusammengewachsenen, motivierten und exzellent vorbereiteten Ensembles, das sich einen Ruf als eines der besten Wagnerorchester weltweit erarbeitet und die Tiroler Festspiele Erl international bekannt gemacht hat. 1999 formierte sich das Orchester der Tiroler Festspiele unter der Leitung von Gustav Kuhn, inzwischen spielen Musiker*innen aus 20 Nationen zusammen. Junge Spitzentalente, Musiker*innen aus großen internationalen Orchestern, Kammermusikspezialist*innen und Dozent*innen kommen so jährlich im Sommer und Winter, seit 2017 auch im Herbst und an Ostern im Rahmen der Tiroler Festspiele Erl zusammen. Zum Repertoire des Klangkörpers gehören neben den zehn großen Musikdramen Richard Wagners und Opern von Strauss, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi und Rossini auch die Symphonien Beethovens und viele weitere zentrale Werke des Konzertrepertoires sowie zeitgenössische Werke und Uraufführungen. Seit der Sommersaison 2022 ist Erik Nielsen Chefdirigent des Orchesters der Tiroler Festspiele Erl.

Erik
Nielsen

Erik Nielsen has been chief conductor of the Tyrol Festival Erl since 2022, where he conducts the entire "Ring des Nibelungen" and has already been on the podium for "Le postillon de Lonjumeau" and numerous concerts. Chief conductor of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra since 2015, he will complete his ninth and final season with the orchestra in 2024. From 2016 to 2018, Erik Nielsen was music director of the Theater Basel.

He also has a decade-long collaboration with the Frankfurt Opera. His most recent engagements include "Rusalka" and "Norma" at the Semperoper Dresden, "Salome" at the Zurich Opera House, the world premiere of Manfred Trojahn's "Eurydice - The Lovers Blind" at De Nationale Opera Amsterdam, "Peter Grimes," "Das Rheingold" and Křenek's "Karl V. " at the Bavarian State Opera, "Pelléas et Mélisande" at the Semperoper Dresden, "Peter Grimes" and Trojahn's "Orest" at the Zurich Opera House, "Billy Budd" and Lachenmann's "Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern" at the Frankfurt Opera, and "The Rake's Progress" in Budapest. Future plans include "Aida" in Frankfurt and "Oedipus Rex" / "Antigone" at De Nationale Opera Amsterdam.

Concerts have taken Erik Nielsen to Oslo, Manchester, Stockholm, Madrid, Strasbourg, Lisbon, Basel, the Aspen Music Festival and the Interlochen Center for the Arts, among others. After studying harp, oboe and conducting in New York and Philadelphia, he was a member of the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic as a harpist.

Brigitte
Fassbaender

Brigitte Fassbaender, who is directing the complete "Ring des Nibelungen" in Erl, is one of the most important artists these days. Until 1994 she pursued a sensational international career as a mezzo-soprano, which took her to all the leading opera houses and to the most renowned festivals in the world with the important roles in her field. Some 300 recordings, many of which have received awards, and the majority of which are in the lied and concert repertoire, testify to the importance of the Munich and Vienna Kammersängerin.

Since 1994, Brigitte Fassbaender has devoted herself entirely to directing and has since staged some 90 productions in Germany and abroad. Among her most recent works is the world premiere of Vito Žuraj's / Händl Klaus' opera "Blühen" at the Frankfurt Opera. Between 1995 and 1997 Brigitte Fassbaender was opera director at the Staatstheater Braunschweig, and from 1999 to 2012 she was artistic director of the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck.

From 2009 to 2017 she was Artistic Director of the Richard Strauss Festival Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Since 2002 she has directed the festival "Eppaner Liedsommer". The promotion of young talents was and is an important concern for Brigitte Fassbaender: As a sought-after vocal pedagogue, she teaches master classes worldwide. In 2019, her memoirs "Komm' aus dem Staunen nicht heraus" were published.

Kaspar
Glarner

Kaspar Glarner was born in Zurich and studied in Paris. He regularly designs sets and costumes for productions by Keith Warner, including "Volo di notte" / "Il prigionero," "Death in Venice," "Falstaff," "Lear" and most recently "Der Zar lässt sich fotografieren" / "Die Kluge" at Oper Frankfurt and "Otello" at the ROH Covent Garden in London. Their joint reading of "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" premiered at the Vienna State Opera during the current season.

For Walter Sutcliffe, Kaspar Glarner designed the sets for "Owen Wingrave", "The Turn of the Screw" and "Tiefland" in Toulouse, "Die Gespenstersonate" at Oper Frankfurt, "Rigoletto" in Santiago de Chile and Belfast as well as Gounod's "Faust" at Staatstheater Karlsruhe. Kaspar Glarner also has a longstanding collaboration with Johannes Erath: "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" in Bern, "Aida" in Cologne, "Lohengrin" in Graz and Oslo, "I masnadieri" at the Bavarian State Opera, as well as the world premiere of "Der Mieter" at the Frankfurt Opera and "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" in 2022/23.

In Frankfurt he also worked with Anselm Weber on "Lady Macbeth of Mzensk". Kaspar Glarner's work has also been seen in San Francisco, Tokyo, Santiago de Chile, Copenhagen, Prague, Warsaw, Strasbourg, Toulouse and at the Festival-d'Aix-en-Provence. For the Tyrolean Festival Erl he worked on "Le postillon de Lonjumeau" as well as the "Ring des Nibelungen".

Jan
Hartmann

Jan Hartmann, who has already designed the lighting for "Rusalka," "L'elisir d'amore" and "Francesca da Rimini" at the Tyrol Festival Erl and is accompanying the entire "Ring des Nibelungen," has been engaged at the Frankfurt Opera since 1999. There he worked for the first time in 2011 as lighting designer for the production "Nineteen Hundred".

This was followed by, among others. "Idomeneo", "The Golden Dragon", "Julietta", "Le cantatrici villane", "Pierrot lunaire" / "Anna Toll" (world premiere), "Rigoletto", "L'Africaine", "The Cunning Little Vixen", "Dalibor," "The Medium" / "Satyricon," "Pénélope," "La gazzetta," "Amadigi," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," the world premiere "Blühen" and "Le vin herbé."

In 2023/24 he is working on "Der Traumgörge" and "Tannhäuser", among others. In addition, Jan Hartmann has worked for various music theater, dance, drama and film projects, including with the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble for the "Festa Teatrale Carneval" in Hong Kong, with choreographer Deborah Hay for the production "As Holy Sites Go" as well as for "Falstaff" at the Nationaltheater Mannheim. Since 2013 he has been a lecturer in lighting design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach am Main.

Bibi
Abel

Video artist Bibi Abel studied at the Cologne Werkkunstschule and completed further training as a multimedia developer. Engagements have taken her to the Cologne Opera, the Frankfurt Opera, the Aalto Music Theater in Essen, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Theater an der Wien, the playhouses of Bochum, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Graz and Zurich, the Theater Gessnerallee in Zurich, the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, the Teatro Massimo in Palermo and the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome.

Bibi Abel has a continuous collaboration with the director Johannes Erath. Other directors she has worked with include David Bösch, Jan Bosse, Vincent Boussard, Agnese Cornelio, Heike M. Götze, Tilmann Köhler, Andreas Kriegenburg, Vera Nemirova and Keith Warner. At the Tyrol Festival Erl, she is responsible for the video in "Der Ring des Nibelungen" and also in "Bianca e Falliero" in 2022.

Future engagements include Trojahn's "September Sonata" at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf and an "Evening for Arnold Schönberg" for the composer's 150th birthday for the Musiktheater an der Wien.

Mareike
Wink

Mareike Wink supports Brigitte Fassbaender's production of "Der Ring des Nibelungen" at the Tyrol Festival Erl. There, she has already made guest appearances for "Rusalka", "Le postillon de Lonjumeau" and "Francesca da Rimini".

Since 2013 Mareike Wink has been employed as a dramaturge at the Frankfurt Opera, where she has worked with directors such as David Hermann, Jens-Daniel Herzog, Nadja Loschky, Benedikt von Peter, Hans Walter Richter, R. B. Schlather, Lydia Steier, Katharina Thoma and Keith Warner, with conductors such as Martyn Brabbins, Dennis Russell Davies, Johannes Debus, Leo Hussain, Karsten Januschke, Eun Sun Kim, Erik Nielsen, Alexander Soddy, Sebastian Weigle and Lothar Zagrosek, and with composers such as Peter Eötvös, Helmut Lachenmann, Rolf Riehm, Manfred Trojahn and Vito Žuraj.

The reading of "Schlaues Füchslein" by Ute M. Engelhardt, which she accompanied, was awarded the 2016 Götz Friedrich Prize, and the Frankfurt premiere of three one-act operas by Ernst Křenek was celebrated as "Rediscovery of the Year 2018" at the International Opera Awards. She is also active as a guest dramaturg for the International Bach Academy Stuttgart. Mareike Wink studied music, theater and media studies as well as German language and literature in Frankfurt and Rome, and was a scholarship holder of the Richard Wagner Association Frankfurt.

Vincent
Wolfsteiner

The Munich-born Vincent Wolfsteiner studied with William Cotten in the USA and made his debut as Rodolfo ("La Bohème") at the Granite State Opera in New Hampshire, US. He subsequently appeared as Don José ("Carmen"), Turiddu ("Cavalleria rusticana"), Coraddo ("Il corsaro"), Canio ("Pagliacci"), Prince ("The Love for Three Oranges"), Count Zedlau ("Wiener Blut"), Florestan ("Fidelio"), Max ("Der Freischütz"), Erik ("Der fliegende Holländer"), Hans ("Die verkaufte Braut"), Des Grieux ("Manon Lescaut"), Aegisth ("Elektra"), Bacchus ("Ariadne auf Naxos") and Siegmund ("Die Walküre") on numerous American and German stages.

In permanent engagements at the Nuremberg State Theater and the Frankfurt Opera, he expanded his repertoire to include the core roles in his field. Guest engagements took Vincent Wolfsteiner to the Theater an der Wien as Hüon ("Oberon") and to the Berlin State Opera as Wagner's Tristan and Strauss' Bacchus and Herodes. He also sang the latter role at the Vienna State Opera and the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.

At the Bayreuth Festival he filled in as Tristan and Siegmund, and in Paris and Munich as Tristan and Lohengrin, which he also interpreted at the Tokyo Spring Festival and at the Teatro Communale di Bologna. Sinowi Borissowitsch Ismailow ("Lady Macbeth of Mzensk") at the Hamburg, Baron de Laubardemont ("The Devils of Loudun") at the Bavarian and the first Tannhäuser at the Berlin State Opera will now be followed by both Siegfrieds at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl in 2022/23.

Vincent Wolfsteiner has worked with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Plácido Domingo, Thomas Guggeis, Kent Nagano, Christian Thielemann, Sebastian Weigle and Lothar Zagrosek, and with directors such as Christof Loy, Barrie Kosky and Keith Warner.

Peter
Marsh

As a long-time ensemble member of Oper Frankfurt, Peter Marsh has performed a wide variety of roles since 1998, including Monostatos ("Die Zauberflöte") and Aegisth ("Elektra") as well as Der Anführer (Weill's "Der Zar lässt sich fotografieren") in 2022/23. His most recent convincing roles include Monsieur Taupe ("Capriccio"), Knusperhexe ("Hansel and Gretel"), Der Diakon Ossip ("The Night Before Christmas"), 4th Jude ("Salome") and Desiré ("Fedora"). His character-rich roles in Frankfurt also included Antinous ("Pénélope"), Der Rebell ("The Secret Kingdom"), Oedipus ("Oedipus Rex"), Leukippos ("Daphne"), Hauptmann ("Wozzeck"), Trimalchio ("Satyricon"), Pedrillo ("Die Entführung aus dem Serail"), Matteo ("Arabella") and Der Schäbige ("Lady Macbeth von Mzensk"). 

Previously he sang Lord Arturo Bucklaw ("Lucia di Lammermoor"), Apollo ("Daphne"), Mime ("Siegfried", CD and DVD on OehmsClassics), the title role of Zemlinsky's "The Dwarf", Kimmo ("Kullervo") and Mozart (Rimski- Korsakov's "Mozart and Salieri"). With the role of Walter (Weinberg's "The Passenger"), which he interpreted in Frankfurt and at the Vienna Festival, the American-born soprano made a guest appearance at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv. He appeared as Peter Grimes at the Staatstheater Nuremberg and the Dortmund Opera. Other guest engagements have taken him to the Irish National Opera in Dublin ("Aegisth"), Seattle Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the State Operas in Munich, Berlin, Dresden and Hamburg, to Düsseldorf, Brussels, Tbilisi, Montepulciano and Tokyo, as well as to the festivals in Bregenz and Edinburgh.

In the summer of 2022, he appeared as Peter Grimes at the Staatstheater Nuremberg. Past guest engagements have taken him to the Dortmund Opera (Peter Grimes), the Irish National Opera in Dublin (Aegisth), Seattle Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the State Operas in Munich, Berlin, Dresden and Hamburg, to Düsseldorf, Brussels, Tbilisi, Montepulciano and Tokyo as well as to the festivals in Bregenz and Edinburgh.

Simon
Bailey

Simon Bailey's recent roles include Don Pasquale at the Staatstheater Saarbrücken, Orest ("Elektra") at Oper Frankfurt and Mr Redburn ("Billy Budd") at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen. Future plans include Balstrode ("Peter Grimes") and Don Bartolo ("Il barbiere di Siviglia") at ENO Baylis.

Recent engagements have brought him to Bilbao as the Wanderer ("Siegfried"), to the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels as David Strom in the world premiere of Defoort's "The Time of Our Singing," to the Staatsoper Stuttgart as The Judge of the Dead in "The Condemnation of Lucullus." as Handel's Achilla to the Theater an der Wien, as Klingsor ("Parsifal") to the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, as Kutuzov ("War and Peace") to Welsh National Opera and the ROH Covent Garden, and as Mozart's Leporello to the Staatstheater Wiesbaden and the WNO.

The British-born winner of the 2018 Wales Theatre Award is also in demand internationally as a concert singer and has continued to be invited to perform roles such as Méphistophélès ("La damnation de Faust"), Jochanaan ("Salome"), Mozart's Figaro and the four villains in "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" at such houses as Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Oper Vlaanderen and Theater Basel. At the Frankfurt Opera, where he was a member of the ensemble for many years, Simon Bailey sang Peter ("Hansel and Gretel"), Mr Redburn ("Billy Budd"), Gunther ("Götterdämmerung"), Klingsor, Gelone ("L'Orontea"), Don Magnifico ("La Cenerentola") as well as the main part of "Duke Bluebeard's Castle".

Craig
Colclough

The American bass-baritone Craig Colclough has already appeared as Alberich ("Das Rheingold") at the Tyrol Festival in Erl. He began his career at Los Angeles Opera, where he remains a regular guest, most recently as Figaro ("Le Nozze di Figaro") and Peter ("Hansel and Gretel").

Major international engagements include Macbeth at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Lyric Opera Chicago, Bayerische Staatsoper Munich and Opera Vlaanderen, Telramund ("Lohengrin") at the ROH Covent Garden in London, Scarpia ("Tosca") with the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, Falstaff and Don Pasquale at Minnesota Opera, Kurwenal ("Tristan und Isolde") and Jack Rance ("Fanciulla del West") at ENO in London, Fra Melitone ("La forza del destino") at Oper Frankfurt and Sweeney Todd at Opera Saratoga.

His plans include Wagner's "Der Fliegende Holländer" in Gothenburg and Leporello ("Don Giovanni") at Los Angeles Opera. Craig Colclough has appeared on the concert podium as Timur ("Turandot") with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela under Gustavo Dudamel and in Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. He appeared as Dottore Grenvil ("La traviata") at the Hollywood Bowl.

Major conductors and directors with whom he has collaborated include: Woody Allen, Christoph Waltz, James Gray, Richard Jones CBE, Sir David McVicar, Plácido Domingo, James Conlon, Edward Gardner, Paolo Carignani and Marco Armiliato. Craig Colclough was a Young Artist with Florida Grand Opera and Filene Young Artist with Wolf Trap Opera.

Anthony Robin
Schneider

The Austrian-New Zealand bass Anthony Robin Schneider has already made guest appearances at the Tyrolean Festival in Erl as Fafner ("Das Rheingold") and Hunding ("Die Walküre").

In 2018/19 he made his debut as the Wirt in "Der ferne Klang" (CD on OehmsClassics) at Oper Frankfurt, of which he has been a member of the ensemble since 2019/20. In addition to this role, he sang Hans Schwarz ("Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg") and the title role of Handel's "Hercules" among others in the current season. In Frankfurt, he previously made his debuts as Ibn-Hakia ("Iolanta") and Panas ("The Night Before Christmas"; "Performance of the Year 2021/22") and was heard as Cirillo ("Fedora") as well as Heinrich der Vogler ("Lohengrin"), which he will embody at De Nationale Opera Amsterdam this winter.

Other roles in his repertoire include Bartolo ("Le nozze di Figaro") and Steward / Sergeant ("Lady Macbeth of Mzensk"), A Monk / Grand Inquisitor ("Don Carlo") and Sparafucile ("Rigoletto"). In February 2022, Anthony Robin Schneider returned to Houston Grand Opera as Sarastro / Speaker ("The Magic Flute"), whose opera studio the singer, who trained at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, graduated from.

Other guest engagements to date have included The Shadow of Hector ("Les Troyens") at the Vienna State Opera, Truffaldin ("Ariadne auf Naxos") at the Santa Fe Opera and with the Cleveland Orchestra, Baron / Grand Inquisitor ("Candide") also at Santa Fe, Mesner ("Tosca"), Fabrizio (Rossini's "La pietra del paragone"), and Death ("The Emperor of Atlantis") and Duc de Hoël ("Le vin herbé") at Wolf Trap Opera. Anthony Robin Schneider was a fellow of the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation.

Zanda
Švēde

Latvian mezzo-soprano Zanda Švēde can currently be heard as Erda ("Siegfried") and Waltraute ("Götterdämmerung") at the Tyrol Festival in Erl, where she also appears in Tchaikovsky's "The Snow Maiden" in winter. Since 2018/19 she has been part of the ensemble at Oper Frankfurt, where she most recently made her debut in the title role of Handel's "Orlando" and appeared on stage as Nenila ("The Enchantress") and Clairon ("Capriccio"), as well as in "Das schlaue Füchschen" and in Bruckner's "Te Deum" on the occasion of GMD Sebastian Weigle's "Farewell Concert".

There she previously embodied the title roles of Bizet's "Carmen" and Handel's "Xerxes", Zenobia ("Radamisto"), sang Sonjetka ("Lady Macbeth of Mzensk"), Dryade ("Ariadne auf Naxos"), Herodias ("Salome"), Maddalena ("Rigoletto"), Hippolyta "A Midsummer Night's Dream". In 2023/24 she will sing Amando ("Le Grand Macabre") and Cornelia ("Giulio Cesare in Egitto"). The role of Carmen took Zanda Švēde to Pittsburgh Opera, Seattle Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Latvian National Opera in Riga.

Trained at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music in Riga, she has also made guest appearances with Lyric Opera of Chicago, North Carolina Opera and Palm Beach Opera. At San Francisco Opera, whose Merola Opera Program she belonged to as an Adler Scholar, she sang Suzuki, Maddalena, Tisbe ("La Cenerentola") and Lena in the world premiere of Marco Tutino's "La Ciociara," among others. Zanda Švēdes repertoire also includes Endimione (Cavalli's "La Calisto"), Olga ("Eugene Onegin"), Grimgerde ("Die Walküre") as well as the main roles in Massenet's "Cléopâtre" and Piazzolla's "María de Buenos Aires".

Christiane
Libor

Christiane Libor has sung roles from the youth to dramatic soprano repertoire at opera houses such as the Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg and Stuttgart State Operas, the Frankfurt Opera, the Zurich Opera, the Opéra Bastille in Paris and the opera houses of and the opera houses of Washington and Seattle.

She has worked with renowned orchestras and conductors such as Philippe Auguin, Marek Janowski, Philippe Jordan, Kurt Masur, Ingo Metzmacher, Marc Minkowski, Sebastian Weigle, Antoni Wit, Simone Young and Jaap van Zweden. Recent guest engagements include her debut as Turandot at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Leonore ("Fidelio") at the West Australian Opera in Perth under Asher Fisch and with the Los Angeles Philhamonic Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel, and Brünnhilde ("Götterdämmerung") at the Staatsoper Stuttgart.

At Oper Leipzig, where she sang all three Brünnhilden for the first time in 2018, Christiane Libor will be heard next season as Wagner's Isolde and Strauss' Elektra. By now, the soprano has interpreted almost all Wagner roles in her field. A native of Berlin and winner of the O. E. Hasse Prize of the Berlin Academy of the Arts and the Salzburg International Mozart Competition, she studied at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music with Anneliese Fried and continued to be taught by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Brigitte Fassbaender. Since 2011 Christiane Libor has been a professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe.

Anna
Nekhames

The Moscow-born soprano Anna Nekhames was heard in the winter of 2022 as Francesca da Rimini at the Tyrol Festival Erl, which she also sang shortly thereafter at the Frankfurt Opera, of which she has been a member of the ensemble since 2022/23.

Previously, Anna Nekhames was a member of the Opera Studio of the Vienna State Opera, where she appeared on stage as Juliette ("Die tote Stadt"), Masha and Chloe ("Pique Dame"), Second Flower Girl ("Parsifal"), Konstanze ("Entführung ins Zauberreich") and Modistin ("Der Rosenkavalier"), among others. In Frankfurt, she has sung Mozart's Queen of the Night and Schreker's Mizi ("Der ferne Klang"), among others. She also appeared as the Queen of the Night at the Volksoper Wien, where she also embodied the Morning Bird in the Austrian premiere of Glanert's "Leyla und Medjnun".

A native of Moscow, she was first in the children's choir of the Bolshoi Theater before beginning her vocal studies at the College of Musical Theater Arts "Galina Vishnevskaya." She then studied at the Gnessin Academy of Music in Moscow. She completed her master's degree at the Music and Art Private University of the City of Vienna.

The repertoire of the multiple award-winning singer continues to include roles such as Musetta ("La bohème"), Madame Herz ("Der Schauspieldirektor"), Olympia ("Les contes d'Hoffmann"), Giannetta ("L'elisir d'amore"), Voce dal cielo ("Don Carlo"), Gilda ("Rigoletto"), Xenia ("Boris Godunov"), Adele ("Die Fledermaus"), First Wood Elf ("Rusalka"), An Italian Singer ("Capriccio") and Fiakermilli ("Arabella").