Hildegard Bechtler

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Hildegard Maria Bechtler (born on November 14, 1951 in Stuttgart ) is a German stage and costume designer who has lived in London since the 1970s and works in Europe and North America. She has been married to Scottish actor Bill Paterson since 1984 and the couple have two children.

life and work

Bechtler grew up in her hometown and moved to London in the early 1970s to study painting at Camberwell College of Arts . She then studied stage design and costume at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design . At the beginning of her career she worked in film, but then switched to theater. In a 2013 interview, she explained the two main reasons for this: on the one hand, theater work is more compatible with family life; on the other hand, a set designer has more control over the end result than a set designer with a film. She designed numerous sets and occasionally also the costumes for British theater productions, both in London's West End , as well as at the Royal National Theater and the Royal Shakespeare Company . Her work has received several awards, including the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award .

Salzburg Festival

In 1993 she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival . That year she was invited by Deborah Warner to take over the set design for their Coriolan production. The costumes were designed by Chloé Obolensky , the lighting by Jean Kalman . This production was also shown the following year. Twenty years later she named the 40 meter wide stage of the Felsenreitschule , the number of 200 extras and the horses used in this production as the greatest challenge of her career. 1996 followed in Salzburg a guest performance of the London production of Deborah Warner of Shakespeare's Richard II with Fiona Shaw in the title role, this time Bechtler designed the stage and costumes. In 2016 she staged the world premiere of Thomas Adès ' The Exterminating Angel in the Haus für Mozart . It was conducted by the composer, staging Tom Cairns , lighting design Jon Clark , dramaturge Christian Arseni .

Opera

In the field of opera , she works mainly with directors Tim Albery , Tom Cairns , Terry Gilliam , Peter Hall and Deborah Warner . One of her early opera productions, if not the first, was Mozart's Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1994 - with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment , directed by Yakov Kreizberg , and with Deborah Warner as director. This production was recorded for television in 1995 and is also available on DVD. With Albery she worked on a Madama Butterfly for Leeds and Lisbon, an Aida for Toronto, a Katja Kabanowa for Oviedo and Boston and Mozart's La finta giardiniera for the Santa Fe Opera . She designed the stage for Peter Hall's highly successful production of Rossini's La Cenerentola at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2005 and for Terry Gilliam's new production of Berlioz ' La damnation de Faust in 2011, which has so far been shown and filmed in London, Palermo, Gent and Antwerp . For Cairns' production of Janáček's Věc Makropulos at the Edinburgh International Festival 2012, which was subsequently shown at the Opera North in Leeds, she took on the set design, as well as for his La traviata at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 2014. She also worked at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and at the Washington National Opera , for whose new production of Poulenc's Le Dialogue des Carmélites she designed the sets. It was directed by the American director Francesca Zambello .

Bechtler has been married to British actor Bill Paterson since 1984 . The couple have two children, a son and a daughter, and live in London.

Awards (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Guardian : Hildegard Bechtler, designer - portrait of the artist , September 17, 2013
  2. ↑ Debrett's profile  ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.debretts.com  
  3. ↑ Michael Wade Simpson: Celestial Mozart despite the earthbound plot: La finta giardiniera at Santa Fe Opera , bachtrack, July 28, 2015
  4. ^ David Smythe: Opera North's production première of The Makropulos Case at the Edinburgh Festival , bachtrl, August 13, 2012
  5. ↑ Hillary straw: An underwhelming Dialogues of the Carmelites from Francesca Zambello in Washington , stream track, 28 February 2015
personal data
SURNAME Bechtler, Hildegard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bechtler, Hildegard Maria (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German stage and costume designer
DATE OF BIRTH November 14, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart