Around the Music Festival

German director Johannes Schaaf died one day at the age of 86. After working in the theater and film worlds since the 1960s, he has been directing opera since the 1980s, and has produced numerous productions at famous European theaters and music festivals. He established an era in the opera world, and many productions continue to be performed today.

He was born in 1933 in Stuttgart. He grew up in a police bureaucracy family and studied medicine in Tubingen and Berlin. In the 1950s, he studied at the Stuttgart theater as an assistant to the director as well as the actor. In 1958, he moved to the Ulm Theater, where he worked as the director for the first stage, and from 1962 he moved to the Bremen Theater.

From 1964, he turned into the movie world. Worked on 1966“Große Liebe”, 1967“Tätowierung”, 1971“Trotta”, and 1973 “Traumstadt”, and became one of the directors representing the new generation of German films. “Trotta” won the Federal Film Award and was nominated for Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Later, in 1986, “MOMO” was finally transformed into the opera world. In 1985, he directed “Capriccio” at the Salzburg Festival, and at Salzburg he directed “Die Entführung aus dem Serail” and “Magic Flute”. At the same time, he expanded his activities to famous opera house such as the Vienna State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera. In particular, he received high acclaim for his interpretation of Mozart’s work. 2009’s “Tosca” at the Saxon State Opera (Semper Oper) was the last big job.

Photo：Mariinsky Theater0