Sergio Morabito

Sergio Morabito (* 1963 in Frankfurt am Main ) is a German-Italian dramaturge and opera director .

Life

Morabito studied applied theater studies with Hans-Thies Lehmann in Giessen and graduated with a diploma . Already during his studies, he completed the first director - and dramatic - internships at the Frankfurt Opera , including the so-called 'Frankfurter Ring', directed by Ruth Berghaus .

In the following years he worked as a dramaturge at the Thalia Theater Hamburg at the invitation of Klaus Zehelein . From 1993 to 2018 he worked as a dramaturge and director at the Stuttgart State Opera , and since 2011 also as chief dramaturge. He was a production dramaturge for productions a. a. by Ruth Berghaus , Margarethe von Trotta , Christof Nel , Joachim Schlömer , Martin Kušej , Hans Neuenfels , Christian Spuck and Demis Volpi. He has been in artistic exchange with Andrea Breth since her Eugene Onegin at the Salzburg Festival 2007, for whom he accompanied dramaturgically (including for Breth's Stuttgart production of Jakob Lenz , the “Performance of the Year 2015”, and for the double evening Der Gefangene / Das Gehege in Brussels and Stuttgart 2018).

In 1993 he started working with Jossi Wieler . Together and mostly at the side of the stage and costume designer Anna Viebrock , they staged La clemenza di Tito (1994), L'italiana in Algeri (1996), Alcina (1998), L'incoronazione di Poppea (1999), Siegfried ( 1999) , Don Carlos (stage: Erich Wonder, 2001), Norma (2002), Moses und Aron (2003) and Una cosa rara (stage: Martin Zehetgruber, 2003). Her Alcina was a guest at the international festivals in Budapest and Edinburgh , as well as at the opera houses in San Francisco and Lyon . Her Norma was taken over by the Novaya Opera Moscow in 2005, by the Teatro Massimo Palermo in 2014 and by the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2017 .

In 1999/2000 they worked on Verdi's Macbeth at the Basel Theater . The Salzburg Festival from 2001 its staging Ariadne auf Naxos to see. This was followed by Pelléas et Mélisande (stage: Kazuko Watanabe) at the Hanover State Opera in 2003 : a performance that was invited to the Wiener Festwochen and the Edinburgh Festival in 2004 , and which was incorporated into the Stuttgart Opera’s repertoire in 2007. In December 2004 her production of Mozart's Lucio Silla premiered in Amsterdam .

In 2006, Wieler and Morabito brought out a cycle with the Mozart / Da Ponte operas (stage: Barbara Ehnes) at De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam on three consecutive evenings , which - like Alcina , Ariadne auf Naxos , Siegfried , Alceste , La sonnambula , Berenice, Queen of Armenia ( Il Vologeso ), L'Écume des jours , Rigoletto , the Queen of Spades, earthquake. Dreams and Les Huguenots - was recorded and - like most of these recordings - is also available on DVD. In 2008 they staged Un ballo in maschera in Berlin at the Unter den Linden State Opera , La Juive at the Stuttgart State Opera and Rusalka at the Salzburg Festival . Katja Kabanova followed at the Stuttgart State Opera in 2010 . Rusalka was born in 2012 by the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and in 2013 by the Grand Théâtre de Genève , La Juive in 2013 by the Saxon State Opera Dresden, Un ballo in maschera in 2014 by the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto , Moses and Aron in 2014 by the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff accepted. La Juive was her first collaboration with the set designer Bert Neumann . Up until Neumann's death in 2015, they worked together on five further opera productions in Stuttgart, for which Nina von Mechow was responsible as a costume designer.

From the beginning of the 2011/12 season until the end of the 2017/18 season, Sergio Morabito was part of the management team of the Stuttgart Opera as chief dramaturge alongside Jossi Wieler (opera director), Eva Kleinitz (opera director until 2017) and Andrea Moses (senior director until 2014) which Sylvain Cambreling completed as general music director since 2012/13 . While they were in charge, Wieler and Morabito decided to concentrate their energies on the Stuttgart house and to reserve new productions exclusively in Stuttgart. In their first “own” season, they staged Bellini's opera La sonnambula and the Schönberg / Janáček double evening The Happy Hand / Destiny (Osud) . In 2012/13 they realized the new productions of Edison Denisov's L'Écume des jours and von Strauss' / Hofmannsthal's Ariadne auf Naxos . The world premiere of Mark Andres wunderzaichen and the new production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in the 2013/14 season were followed by Jommellis Berenike, Queen of Armenia ( Il Vologeso ) and Verdi's Rigoletto in 2014/15 . In the 2015/16 season, the directors Wieler / Morabito worked on Beethoven's Fidelio and Bellinis I Puritani , in 2016/17 Handel's Ariodante and Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades , followed in 2018 by Donizetti's Don Pasquale and, as the last production before the end of Wieler 's directorship, the world premiere of Erdqueben. Dreams of Toshio Hosokawa .

Her first premieres after leaving Stuttgart as a director were taking over her Sonnambula in Stuttgart at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (January 2019) as well as the new productions Der Freischütz at the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg (April 2019) and Les Huguenots at the Grand Théâtre de Genève (February 2020 ). In addition, Morabito signed up at the Hamburg State Opera as a production dramaturge for the Nabucco production by director Kirill Serebrennikov, who was under house arrest in Moscow at the time .

Sergio Morabito held various teaching positions in theater and literary studies at the universities of Frankfurt, Leipzig and Stuttgart. Sergio Morabito is also a member of the German Academy of Performing Arts .

Sergio Morabito is designated chief dramaturge of the Vienna State Opera under the new direction of Bogdan Roščić from 2020/21.

Awards and honors

• Ariadne auf Naxos wasvoted "Performance of the Year" in2001 by Opernwelt magazine's critics' poll . Wieler / Morabito were “Director Team of the Year”.
• The staging of Doctor Faust by Ferruccio Busoni in San Francisco and Stuttgart was voted “Performance of the Year” in 2005.
• The production of Gluck's Alceste in Stuttgart was 2006 "performance of the year".
• In 2007 he and Wieler received the 1st German Theater Prize Der Faust for the best opera direction for the production of Doctor Faust (Busoni) .
• The staging of Bellini's La sonnambula ( Die Nachtwandlerin ) in 2012 at the Stuttgart Opera was named “Performance of the Year”, and Wieler / Morabito was again named “Director's Team of the Year”.
• For their staging of the Schönberg-Janáček double evening Die Glückliche Hand / Schicksal (Osud) , Wieler / Morabito received the German Theater Prize “Der Faust” in 2012 for the best direction in music theater.
• Wieler / Morabito's production of Denisov's The Foam of the Days received the International Diaghilev Award 2013.
• Jommellis Berenike, Queen of Armenia ( Il Vologeso ) was named “Excavation of the Year” in her 2014 production.
• The Stuttgart Opera was named “Opera House of the Year 2016/17” under her leadership.
• On July 11, 2018, Morabitos was made an honorary member of the Stuttgart State Theater. With him, this honor was bestowed on a director and dramaturge for the first time in its history.

Publications

Sergio Morabito has published numerous articles in programs, CD and DVD booklets and specialist magazines (Opernwelt-Jahrbuch 2001, Musik & Ästhetik) as well as in the anthologies:

• Bettina Masuch (ed.): Anna Viebrock - stages / rooms . 2000
• Albert T. Schaefer: The Stuttgarter Ring . 2001
• Richard Klein (ed.): Scars of the total work of art . 2001
• Mozart yearbook 2003/4
• Thomas Seedorf (ed.): Diva - The staging of the superhuman woman . 2010
• Anniversary publication of the Foundation for the Promotion of the Hamburg State Opera (2010)
• Anke Roeder, Klaus Zehelein (ed.): The Art of Dramaturgy (2011)

He also has numerous literal translations of French , Italian and Russian libretti . In recent years Morabito has also been increasingly active as a journalist ( Opernwelt , Die Deutsche Bühne , Der Theaterverlag ).

Extensive discussions with him and Jossi Wieler can be found in the anthologies AufBrüche , edited by Patrick Primavesi and Olaf A. Schmitt (2004) , Why Opera? , edited by Barbara Beyer (2005), as well as documented in the Opernwelt yearbook 2016.

2011 is the band OPER in B. Kühlen Verlag . A picture reading book by Jossi Wieler, Sergio Morabito and AT Schaefer has been published, reflecting the operas by Morabito and Wieler since 1994 in photos by the photo artist AT Schaefer and in texts by Morabito. In 2018 he gave the band VERWANDLUNGEN at the av edition . Oper Stuttgart 2011-2018 - Seven seasons under the direction of Jossi Wieler . In autumn 2019, JB Metzler Verlag published his book OPERNARBEIT. Texts from 25 years .

Web links

• Literature by and about Sergio Morabito in the catalog of the German National Library