Xavier Zuber

Xavier Zuber (born September 24, 1967 in Basel ) is a Swiss dramaturge , founder of the zeitoper series and opera director in Bern.

life and work

During his school days in Basel, Zuber made his first experiences in music ( jazz and hip-hop ) and as an actor and assistant director (school and youth theater).

After obtaining the Swiss Matura in 1988, the first internships with Herbert Wernicke followed , which led to a first assistant director at the Basel Theater (artistic director: Frank Baumbauer ). The intellectual and artistic environment of the Baumbauer era shaped his further career, in particular the Basel dramaturgy with Stefanie Carp , Matthias Lilienthal , Barbara Mundel , Wilfried Schulz and Albrecht Puhlmann .

From 1989 to 1996 Zuber worked as an assistant director and dramaturge for music theater at various theaters and festivals in Switzerland and abroad. He was shaped by the work of directors and choreographers such as Peter Sellars , Klaus Michael Grüber , William Forsythe and Heiner Goebbels / Michael Simon . There was a long working relationship with the director and set designer Herbert Wernicke as assistant and then as dramaturge until his death. Important works such as: Salome , Der Ring des Nibelungen , Giulio Cesare in Egitto , Satyricon by Bruno Maderna , Orphée aux Enfers and Les Troyens bear witness to this.

From 1990, Xavier Zuber devoted parallel to theater work studies at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main , which he with a thesis on 1996 function and importance of female characters in the opera libretti of Richard Wagner with the Master of Arts graduated. Since then he has worked as a dramaturge on various stages and branches in theaters in Germany and abroad.

He worked with numerous directors and choreographers such as Jürgen Gosch ( Das Leben ist Traum ), Joachim Schlömer ( La Guerra d'Amore, Cosi fan tutte, Tristan und Isolde ) and Calixto Bieito ( Don Giovanni, Trovatore, Hamlet, Lear, Parsifal, The Threepenny Opera ). In between there were permanent engagements as a dance and music theater dramaturge at the Theater Basel (director: Schindhelm) and at the Hanover State Opera (director: Puhlmann).

From 2006 he was head dramaturge at the Stuttgart State Opera under the artistic direction of Albrecht Puhlmann. Today he is director of opera and concerts at the Stadttheater Bern .

Since 2001 Zuber has headed the zeitoper series , which is committed to experimental music theater in public space, and compositions by Juliane Klein, Willy Daum, Ralf R. Ollertz, Spax, Burkhard Niggemeier, Johannes Harneit, Mela Meierhans, Jochen Neurath, Michael Hirsch, Fredrik Zeller , Marc Andre, Ruedi Häusermann, Gordon Kampe, Daniel Ott, Dennis DeSantis, Ming Tsao and Marios Joannou Elia . Since 2008 he has been advising the program committee of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie .

From 1996 to 2002, Xavier Zuber held a teaching position for dramaturgy in the scenography department at the Karlsruhe University of Design . Since 2008 he has been teaching at the University of Stuttgart .

In 2011 he was responsible for the dramaturgy and version for Hérodiade by Jules Massenet and Mahagonny by Bertolt Brecht / Kurt Weill at the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp and Gent (Belgium). In the same year he was responsible for the dramaturgy for Hanjo by Toshio Hosokawa at the Ruhrtriennale 2011 .

Publications

• Berlioz 'Troyens and Halévys Juive in the mirror of the Grand Opéra. Edited by Xavier Zuber, Stuttgart 2011.
• Herbert Wernicke's dramaturgy of the pictures . In: Christian Fluri (Ed.): Herbert Wernicke. Director, set designer, costume designer. Basel 2011.
• On the conception of the Stuttgart Parsifal. In: Parsifal. Program booklet of the State Opera Stuttgart 2010.
• Subvert reality with music. The Zeitoper series at the Stuttgart State Opera. In: Kati Röttger (Ed.): World - Image - Theater. Tübingen 2010.
• Sender, ether, receiver. In: Vincent Tavenne. Exhibition catalog. Stuttgart 2008.
• Vision of the opera. In: IFA (Ed.): Culture Report Progress Europe. Stuttgart 2007.
• Audited gestures - from dance to opera. The Joachim Schlömers dance theater. In: Theater Basel 1996 to 2006. Basel 2006.
• A world on a small scale. In: Eva-Maria Houben (Ed.): Juliane Klein, composer. Pfau Verlag, Saarbrücken 2002.

Honors and prizes

• 2002: Premio Ercilia de la meillor Creation (Spain) for The Threepenny Opera , directed by Calixto Bieito.
• 2001: German Study Prize from the Körber Foundation with Corpus selecti , Karlsruhe University of Design (Department: Scenography)
• 1999: Berliner Theatertreffen, Claudio Monteverdi, La guerra d'Amore , choreography: Joachim Schlömer