Not only by the special effects, the stunts, the musical sound design and the very special version of the narration of the Gilgamesh epic, but also by a lot of expertise and creativity of director Pierre Audi and his team, consisting of stage and light designer Urs Schönebaum, sound designer Stefan Gregory, video designer Gilbert Nouno, dramaturge Klaus Bertisch, costume designer Wojciech Dziedzic, stunt coordinator Ran Arthur Braun and artistic adviser Wouter van Ransbeek, the Linzer Klangwolke 22 presented by Sparkasse OÖ and LINZ AG will shine to its very special highlight.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Pierre Audi studied at Oxford University before founding, in 1979, the Almeida Theatre in London and its Contemporary Music Festival, which he directed until 1989. He was appointed Director of Dutch National Opera (DNO) in 1988, leading the Company for 30 years until August 2018. The DNO was named Opera Company of the Year in 2016. In addition to his responsibilities at the DNO, he served for ten years — from 2004 to 2014 — as Artistic Director of the Holland Festival. Since September 2018, he has been the General Director of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, a responsibility which he carries with that of Artistic Director of the Park Avenue Armory in New York.
As a stage director, he has collaborated on opera productions with numerous visual artists, including Karel Appel, Georg Baselitz, Anish Kapoor, Herzog & de Meuron, Jannis Kounellis, Berlinde De Bruyckere and Jonathan Meese.
Many of his productions, which were presented in Amsterdam, have won acclaim on other stages as well, notably his cycle of Monteverdi operas. He staged the first Dutch production of Wagner’s Ring cycle, as well as many other operas throughout the entire repertoire, including works by Landi, Rameau, Händel, Gluck, Mozart, Rossini, Berlioz, Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, Schönberg and Messiaen.
Since beginning his career in London, Beirut-born Pierre Audi has directed nearly 40 world premieres. Guest engagements have taken him to the Bavarian State Opera, the Drottnigholm Castle Theater, the Salzburg Festival, the Opéra national de Paris, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Theater an der Wien and the Vienna State Opera, the Brussels opera house La Monnaie, the English National Opera, the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Los Angeles Opera, to name but a few.
After completing an apprenticeship of photography in Munich he worked with Max Keller as a part of the lighting department of Münchner Kammerspiele. In 1998 he started being assistant director for productions at Grand Theatre de Genève, Lincoln Center New York and Münchner Kammerspiele until in 2000 he took up to work as a lighting designer for opera, theater, dance, art installations and performances.
He participated in over 200 productions at major theaters with stage directors like Thomas Ostermeier, La Fura dels Baus, William Kentridge, Pierre Audi, Michael Haneke, Damien Jalet, Sasha Waltz and was a long time collaborator of Robert Wilson.
His work includes also lighting designs for art projects with Vanessa Beecroft, Anselm Kiefer, Dan Graham, Taryn Simon and Marina Abramović.
Since 2012 he is working also as a set designer and stage director. He designed and directed the operas Jetzt, What Next? and Happy Happy and created the set and lighting design for productions like Bomarzo, Aus Licht and Apocalypse Arabe.
Stefan Gregory is an Australian composer and sound designer for theatre, dance and film. His unusual background in mathematics and rock ’n roll has helped forge his unique perspective on music and sound. His style ranges from rich orchestral to minimal electronic, from dirty electric guitars to delicate chamber instruments and voices.
His electric guitar accompanied the Vienna Philhamonic’s performance of Medée for Salzburg Festival. His first feature film The Dig, starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan, features intimate piano and moving orchestral pieces, and was long listed for World Soundtrack Awards People’s Choice. His score for the award winning Medea for International Theatre Amsterdam begins with subtly woven electronica and culminates in a devastating soundscape. The highly acclaimed Yerma for The Young Vic features powerful, female vocal chanting. He performed a live continuous two hour score on electric guitar, for Sydney Theatre Company’s acclaimed The War Of The Roses with Cate Blanchett.
He has been commissioned by Queensland Opera and Australian Ballet, and has worked for International Theater Amsterdam, Salzburg Festival, The Young Vic, L’Odeon, Theater Basel, Barbican, Schaubühne, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Park Avenue Armory, Sydney Theater Company, Sydney Dance Company, Belvoir St Theater, and directors including Simon Stone, Benedict Andrews, Anne-Louise Sarks, Eamon Flack, Kip Williams, Gideon Obarzanek, Neil Armfield and Angelica Mesiti.
He’s won a Helpmann award, two Sydney Theatre awards, an OBIE, was nominated for a drama desk award, and has received a Sidney Myer Fellowship. He achieved a platinum release with the band Faker in 2008, and several ARIA award nominations.
Stefan has a degree in pure mathematics, and grew up in a steel agricultural shed on a remote bushland property with no electricity and a pet wallaby called Basil, where he nearly died from a red back spider bite at the age of nine.
Klaus Bertisch studied English, German, art education and pedagogy at the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. He began as a dramaturge at the Frankfurt Opera in the era of Michael Gielen and Klaus Zehelein. He was quickly invited as a guest to opera houses in Freiburg, Mannheim, Essen, Gelsenkirchen, the Volksoper in Vienna, the National Opera in Brussels, and the Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele. From 1987 to 1990, he worked as a dramaturge and author for Siemens Kulturprogramm in Munich. From 1990 to 2018, he was chief dramaturge at De Nationale Opera in Amsterdam.
He now also works as a director, specializing in staged recitals with Marlis Petersen, Olaf Bär, Wolfgang Holzmair, Mojca Erdmann, and others. He has also staged Lehár's Die lustige Witwe and Shostakovich's fragment Die Spieler, as well as Tonight: Lola Blau by Georg Kreisler. He has worked with directors such as Willy Decker in Amsterdam, Leipzig, Dresden, Barcelona and at the Salzburg Festival, with Dale Duesing at the Berlin State Opera, with Floris Visser at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, at the Karlsruhe State Theater and the Glyndebourne Festival, and with Pierre Audi in Amsterdam, Brussels, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Paris, at the Salzburg Festival, Aix-en-Provence, the Holland Festival and the Ruhrtriennale. He regularly created his own projects at the Delft Chamber Music Festival. He also works regularly with Andrea Breth (Amsterdam, Brussels) and Christof Loy (Amsterdam, Salzburg, Vienna).
He also teaches at the Dutch National Opera Academy in Amsterdam and has taught at the University of Amsterdam, the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart and the Academy in Aix-en-Provence. In addition to numerous publications, his most important publications in Germany include the collection Swan Tales, a volume on the director Ruth Berghaus in the series Regie im Theater, the first German biography on the Dutch composer Leo Smit Unerhörtes Talent, and a contribution to the catalog of the exhibition Theater im Sucher by the photographer Ruth Walz.
Gilbert Nouno started experimenting with new media and digital arts from his background in music, visual arts and photography. He has collaborated on several opera works since the 1990s, notably with Pierre Audi and Jean Kalman on Jonathan Harvey's Wagner Dream regarding the design of the electronic music and recently for the video on Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice.
A specialist in new interactive and electronic media, he searches to compose them in new creative forms for interdisciplinary and live performances ranging from opera and theater to music and dance. He is on tour with choreographer Léo Lérus with whom he will soon create a new show.
Ran Arthur Braun is one of the world's most sought-after stunt coordinators and action designers. He has worked on more than 300 productions so far, at all leading opera houses and Festivals. He also enjoys a long-standing collaboration with the Bregenz Festival where he has worked for more than 17 seasons.
He has made a name for himself as a director and set designer: He won the 2014 Polish Music and Theatre Prize for best set design and was voted 2015 Director of the Year for his production of L’enfant et les sortilèges in Poland. He has been a member of Dmitri Tcherniakov's production team since 2017.
He teaches stage fighting at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Centre de Perfeccionament Plácido Domingo in Valencia, Bolschoi in Moscow and the Opera Studio in Amsterdam.
Ran also manages Action Actors for Film , T.V. and Stage Projects. He is involved in many Large Scale Events world wide.
Born in Asse, Belgium on the 12th of July 1977. Wouter has Bachelor and Master degrees in the areas of Psychology, Political Sciences and Theatrical Sciences. He started his career in theatre as personal assistant of Gerard Mortier at that the Ruhrtriennale in Germany.
Three years later he became an assistant in the programming department in Vienna under Marie Zimmerman, with whom he organized three editions of the Wiener Festwochen as well as the international Theater der Welt festival 2005. During this festival he programmed the work of Ivo van Hove for the first time. After this encounter Ivo van Hove asked him to join Toneelgroep Amsterdam in 2006.
After his work on the exponential growth of the international reach of Toneelgroep Amsterdam as employee, Wouter took on the responsibility of becoming the creative director of the company alongside Ivo van Hove in 2014.
Wouter’s principal role with the company for the last decade has been to raise its profile from nationally respected theatre to one of the leading companies in the world. In doing so, he was instrumental not only in supporting Ivo’s artistic work, but in developing TGA’s ability to attract other leading world artists such as Thomas Ostermeier and Katie Mitchell to Holland, as well as bringing on a future generation of world-class talent including Simon Stone and Robert Icke, both of whom began their European careers under Wouter’s leadership.
In 2018 Toneelgroep Amsterdam fused together with the Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam, creating a new organisation named, the international theatre Amsterdam. Beginning this year Wouter decided that after almost 16 years at ITA it was time to go back to a blank page and has been working as an independent creative producer and curator since then. From November 2022 onwards he will combine his own projects with the role of associate artistic director of the Adelaide Festival in Australia.
Wojciech Dziedzic trained at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design in London. Designs costumes for theatre, opera, dance, and musical productions. His works have been presented on the stages of Teatro Real in Madrid, Opera National in Paris, Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, Nederlandse Reisopera, Komische Oper Berlin, Opera de Lyon, Oper Frankfurt, La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels, Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, Washington National Opera, Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Polish National Opera in Warsaw, Festival Aix en Provence, Berliner Ensamble, Staatstheater Stuttgart, Teatro Comunale Bologna, Schauspielhaus Hamburg, Nationaltheatre Mannheim, Theatre Utrecht, and TR Warszawa, among others.
He has collaborated with directors such as: Pierre Audi, Ivo van Hove, Robert Icke, Mariusz Treliński, Katie Mitchell, Johan Simons, Clement Cogitore, Richard Brunel, Thomas Ostermeier, Grzegorz Jarzyna, Eline Arbo, Pia Partum, Thibaud Delpeut and others. He regularly works for the International Theatre Amsterdam.
Wojciech Dziedzic has also worked on Broadway productions: Ivo van Hove’s take on The Crucible and Sam Gold’s staging of The Glass Menagerie. In 2019 he designed costumes for a three-day performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Aus Light directed by Pierre Audi for the Holland Festival.
The boys' choir, which has existed since 1071 and to which Anton Bruckner also belonged, and whose core tasks for centuries have included the arrangement of church music in St. Florian, today gives concerts all over the world.
The choir has performed at major music festivals (including the Salzburg Festival, Vienna Festival Weeks, Festival d'Aix en Provence, Carinthian Summer) and collaborates time and again with the most famous orchestras (including the Vienna Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, ...) and conductors. Franz Welser-Möst, former general music director of the Vienna State Opera and chief conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, is honorary president of the association "Friends of the St. Florian Boys' Choir".
The Boys' Choir performs either as a pure upper voice choir or together with its male choir, which Franz Farnberger founded in 1989 in order to be able to expand the repertoire of the Boys' Choir. It consists largely of former Boys' Choir members who are continuing or have continued their vocal training professionally, and some of whom are active in other renowned ensembles.
The rich discography of the St. Florian Boys' Choir includes not only traditional Austrian music, folk and Christmas songs, but also early music recordings in collaboration with renowned special ensembles on historical instruments.
The artistic director since 1983 has been Franz Farnberger, who, after completing his studies, served for eight years as Kapellmeister of the Vienna Boys' Choir and also taught at the Anton Bruckner Private University until 2017.
Since fall 2018, former St. Florian choirboy Markus Stumpner, who has also been the choir's voice coach since 2013, has served as choir director.
The Swiss film and theatre actress Sunnyi Melles is the daughter of Hungarian artists. Her father Carl Melles was a conductor, her mother Judith Melles-Rohonczy an actress and her grandmother Lóth Ila a silent film actress. After her parents emigrated from Hungary, she was born in Luxembourg and grew up with her mother and brother in Switzerland. For the first 15 years they were stateless. At the age of 14, Sunnyi Melles played alongside Max von Sydow in the English feature film Der Steppenwolf. She completed her acting training at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich.
In October 2022, her latest international feature film by director Ruben Östlund Triangle of Sadness will be shown in cinemas around the world. Ruben Östlund won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for the second time with this film.
Sunnyi Melles can also be seen regularly on opera and theatre stages, most recently in February 2022 at the Opéra national du Rhin in the world premiere of Philip Glass ALICE, a ballet choreographed by Amir Hosseinpour and Jonathan Lunn, where Sunnyi Melles played Alice and author Lewis Carroll (medici.TV).
Sunnyi Melles is a recipient of the Bavarian Order of Merit, a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, and a member of the European - the Swiss - and the Austrian Film Academies. She received the Young Actor Award ("Chaplinschuh") from the German Federal Association of Directors and, after Gustaf Gründgens and Martin Benrath as the most important actress of her time, is the bearer of the Satyr buttons from Goethe's Rock.
In addition to the St. Florian Boys' Choir, there is another Upper Austrian connection: the Naturfreunde OÖ will support the highly qualified stuntmen and stuntwomen as climbing extras. The latter will provide plenty of action in the air as well as on the water, with aerial stunts as well as flyboard riders and pyro stunts, and will thus make this year's Linzer Klangwolke unforgettable.
Sat, September 10, 2022, 8:30 p.m.
Danube Park Linz
Admission free!