The Deutsche Oper am Rhein is an opera company based in Düsseldorf and Duisburg. The opera also has an associated classical ballet company. Axel Kober has been its Music Director since 2009. The resident orchestra, the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, play both opera and symphonic repertoire.
John Clifford, born June 12, is the founder/artistic director of the original Los Angeles Ballet (1974–85), and the chamber-sized touring ensemble, Ballet of Los Angeles (1988–91) and the creator of “CASABLANCA, THE DANCE” produced by Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, Inc. and his Los Angeles Dance Theater. Before that time, Clifford was a principal dancer and choreographer with George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet (1966–74), and guest artist from 1974–80, and was widely considered to be Balanchine’s protégé. He choreographed his first ballets for the NYC Ballet under Balanchine at age 20, thus making him the second-youngest choreographer in history ever to be attached to a major company. The first was Balanchine himself, who was 20 yrs-old when he choreographed his first ballet for Serge Diaghilev's "Ballets Russes." During his time with Balanchine, in his early 20s, he also was a guest choreographer with companies ranging from the San Francisco Ballet, to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, to the Deutsche Oper Ballet in Berlin. Clifford's works were also featured in many TV shows and movies, such as "Flashdance," "The Man Who Loved Women," and TV series such as "Dynasty," "Glitter," and other shows produced by Blake Edwards and Aaron Spelling.
Andiòn Fernàndez is a Spanish Filipina operatic soprano, born in Manila.
Eva Johansson is a Danish operatic soprano.
Marc Bogaerts is a Belgian choreographer and artistic director living in Berlin. He has worked internationally for over more than 50 dance, opera and circus companies. Bogaerts stipulates that our current generational dynamic is complex and routed in the mundane and monotonous rigors of our daily need to survive or surpass. Therefore, he believes in the need to counterbalance routine by symmetrically presenting traditionally segregated styles such as opera, ballet, nouveau circus and stationary art. Following postmodernism, Marc Bogaerts builds a bridge between all forms of physical expression. Making unconventional combinations and bringing in his productions sport, art, ecology/innovations together he creates unusual symbiosis.
Donald Roth Grobe was an American lyric tenor who sang at the Deutsche Oper Berlin during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
Loren Driscoll was an American tenor who had an active international career from the 1950s through the mid-1980s. Driscoll was particularly noted for his performances in contemporary operas and sang in many world premieres.
The Berlin State Ballet is the principal ballet company in the German capital of Berlin. It was created in 2004 through a merger of the separate ballet companies of the city's three opera houses at a time when the city was going through a financial crisis. It is one of the largest ballet companies in Western Europe with approximately 90 dancers.
The Internationale Maifestspiele Wiesbaden is a theater festival in Wiesbaden, Germany. Established in the late 19th century after the Bayreuth Festival, the festival is one of the most distinguished international theatre and music festivals in the world. It is presented annually in May at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, the State Theatre of Hesse in the capital Wiesbaden. The festival currently features performances of operas, ballets, plays and musicals. Visiting companies, mostly from European theaters, present their recent productions along with performances of the Theater Wiesbaden. Concerts from a wide array of music genres are featured as well as artistic circus acts and modern dance presentations. Lectures, recitals, cabaret performances, art showings and readings are also part of the program.
The Theater des Westens is one of the most famous theatres for musicals and operettas in Berlin, Germany, located at Kantstraße 10–12 in Charlottenburg. It was founded in 1895 for plays. The present house was opened in 1896 and dedicated to opera and operetta. Enrico Caruso made his debut in Berlin here, and the Ballets Russes appeared with Anna Pavlova. In the 1930s it was run as the Volkstheater Berlin. After World War II it served as the temporary opera house of Berlin, the Städtische Oper. In 1961 it became the first theatre in Germany to show musicals. Since then it has become the "German equivalent of Broadway extravaganzas", putting on plays and musical comedies.
Tatjana Gsovsky was an internationally known ballet dancer and choreographer who was ballet mistress of the Berlin State Opera, Teatro Colón, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Oper Frankfurt. An influential teacher, she is remembered for first choreographies of works by contemporary composers including Boris Blacher, Werner Egk, Hans Werner Henze, Giselher Klebe, Luigi Nono and Carl Orff.
Edel von Rothe was a German ballet dancer with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf where she became prima ballerina and ultimately ballet mistress.
Tatjana Gürbaca is a German opera director.
Concerto is a one-act ballet in three movements created by Kenneth MacMillan in 1966 for the Berliner Ballett. The music is Dmitri Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto (1957).
Didi Carli is an Argentinian former ballet dancer.
Christof Loy is a German stage director especially for opera, whose work received several awards. A freelance director, he has staged operas from Baroque to premieres of new works at major European opera houses and festivals. He is known for directing works by Mozart.
Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini is a Swiss composer whose operas have been performed at leading European opera houses.
Catherine Gayer is an American coloratura soprano, violinist, musicologist, and academic voice teacher. She made a career in Germany. A member of the Deutsche Oper Berlin for more than four decades, she is known for her performance in premieres of contemporary operas, such as Luigi Nono's Intolleranza 1960 at La Fenice in Venice, the title role in Aribert Reimann's Melusine at the Schwetzingen Festival, and Josef Tal's Die Versuchung at the Bavarian State Opera.
Bohumil Herlischka was a Czech opera director. After years at the National Theatre, he worked from 1957 predominantly in German opera houses, introducing a style later known as Regietheater. He directed several productions at the Oper Frankfurt, and developed a close connection to the Deutsche Oper am Rhein where he staged operas by Leoš Janáček, presenting a cycle of six operas in the 1977&78 season. He directed Schoenberg's Moses und Aaron at the Hamburg State Opera, including a tour to Israel. He focused on rarely played works such as Meyerbeer's Le prophète at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and on contemporary opera such as Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and the world premiere of Alexander Goehr's Behold the Sun – Die Wiedertäufer.
