Dortmund is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the ninth-largest city in Germany. With a population of 612,065 inhabitants, it is the largest city of the Ruhr as well as the largest city of Westphalia. It lies on the Emscher and Ruhr rivers in the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, the second biggest metropolitan region by GDP in the European Union, and is considered the administrative, commercial, and cultural centre of the eastern Ruhr. Dortmund is the second-largest city in the Low German dialect area, after Hamburg.
The Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie is a German symphony orchestra based in Herford. It was founded in 1950 and, along with Philharmonie Südwestfalen and Landesjugendorchester NRW, is one of the 'official' orchestras (Landesorchester) of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The orchestra has been shaped by conductors such as Wilhelm Schüchter, Hermann Scherchen and Andris Nelsons. They have regularly served several cities in northwest Germany, and toured internationally to halls such as Berliner Philharmonie, Tonhalle Zürich and Großes Festspielhaus in Salzburg, also to the U.S. and Japan.
Wilhelm Schüchter was a German conductor. He was Generalmusikdirektor in Dortmund from 1962 until his death. He opened the new opera house in 1966 with Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss, and conducted the world premiere of the opera Eli by Walter Steffens after the drama of Nelly Sachs in 1967. He left a legacy of opera recordings, especially of excerpts sung in German.
Theater Dortmund is a theatrical organization that produces operas, musicals, ballets, plays, and concerts in Dortmund, Germany. It was founded as the Stadttheater Dortmund in 1904. Supported by the German Government, the organization owns and operates several performance spaces.
The Dortmunder Philharmoniker are a German symphony orchestra based in Dortmund. The orchestra of the Theater Dortmund performs opera in the Opernhaus Dortmund and concert in the Konzerthaus Dortmund. The orchestra was founded in 1887 and has been shaped by conductors such as Wilhelm Schüchter, Marek Janowski, Moshe Atzmon and Jac van Steen.
Christiane Kohl is a German soprano in opera and concert.
Jens-Daniel Herzog is a German stage director for play and opera, and a theater manager.
Opernhaus Wuppertal is a German theatre in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. It houses mostly performances of operas, but also plays, run by the municipal Wuppertaler Bühnen. The house is also the venue for dance performances by the Tanztheater Wuppertal company created by Pina Bausch.
Hans Wallat was a German conductor, GMD in Bremen, at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, Theater Dortmund and Deutsche Oper am Rhein. A specialist for the stage works of Richard Wagner, he appeared at the Bayreuth Festival and internationally.
Elisabeth Glauser is a Swiss operatic mezzo-soprano and an academic teacher of voice. She was engaged at opera houses in Germany and has appeared at international festivals including the Bayreuth Festival and the Glyndebourne Festival. She has focused on roles by Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner, and has created roles in contemporary opera, such as Babette in Henze's Die englische Katze.
Günther Morbach was a German classical bass in opera and concert. He performed major roles at German opera houses and on international tours.
Liselotte Hammes is a German operatic soprano and academic voice teacher. While based at the Cologne Opera, she performed internationally. One of her signature roles is Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss, which she performed at the Glyndebourne Festival, among other European opera houses.
Frank Philipp Schlößmann is a German scenic designer focused on operas who has worked at major opera houses and festivals internationally. He staged Janáček's Jenůfa at the Metropolitan Opera, Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at both the Bayreuth Festival and Der Ring in Minden, and the world premiere of Heinz Holliger's Lunea at the Opernhaus Zürich.
Jeff Martin is an American operatic tenor who made a career based in Germany, singing at international opera houses and concert halls. Focused on character roles, he has appeared as Mime in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen and Herod in Salome by Richard Strauss, and appeared in several world premieres.
Christine Mielitz is a German theatre and opera director.
Philipp Kochheim is a German theatre director, author and scenic designer. He also wrote the libretto for the opera Kniefall von Warschau named after Willy Brandt's genuflexion in Warsaw on 7 December 1970, with music by Gerhard Rosenfeld, which premiered in 1997 in the Opernhaus Dortmund, directed by John Dew.
Hainer Hill was a German scenic designer, costume designer, painter, graphic artist and theatre photographer who was based in Berlin and worked internationally. After studying painting in Frankfurt, he worked at the Oper Frankfurt, assisting Caspar Neher. Together they moved to Brecht's Berliner Ensemble where Hill created an iconic stage for Mutter Courage and took hundreds of scene photographs now archived at the Akademie der Künste. When the Berlin Wall was erected, Hill, who lived in the West and had worked in the East, began to work freelance, including at the Royal Opera House. In 1966 he became director of scenery (Ausstattunggsleiter) at Opernhaus Dortmund, and there he created the stage for the world premiere of Eli by Walter Steffens, which was followed by 45 other productions. Hill is best remembered for his focus on light projection.
Eli, Op. 7, is a German-language opera in three acts with music by Walter Steffens to a libretto based on a play by Nelly Sachs. The world premiere was in 1967 at the Opernhaus Dortmund.
Günter Wewel was a German operatic bass and television presenter. Based at the Opernhaus Dortmund for decades, he performed 80 roles in Germany and Europe. He is known for presenting the television series Kein schöner Land, with more than 150 episodes from 1989 to 2007, which portrays regions in Europe, their landscape, people and folklore, the first such show filmed at the locations.
Claus Guth is a German theatre director, focused on opera. He has directed operas at major houses and festivals, including world premieres such as works of the Munich Biennale, and Berio's Cronaca del luogo at the Salzburg Festival in 1999. Guth is particularly known for his opera productions of the works of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. He has received two Faust awards, for Daphne by Richard Strauss in 2010, and for Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, both at the Oper Frankfurt.
