ENGLISCH
Philipp Harnoncourt
is a versatile stage director with experience in many areas of theatre: He directs plays and opera productions, he creates light- and stage-designs;
as technical director he organized the ImPulsTanz Festival for dance and performance in Vienna for more than ten years, he worked as theatre director
for the "Schauspielhaus Wien" and he also writes his own plays.
Philipp Harnoncourt created light designs for many plays, as well as musical and dance theatre productions at major theatres and with famous artists, for example with Robert Wilson and the Vienna State Opera Ballet, he also works for independent and experimental companies. For years he has been responsible for stage and lighting of choreographer Christine Gaigg`s innovative dance productions, where he interrogates and varies time and again the arrangement in space between performers and audience.
As a long-term member of ImPulsTanz production team he worked together with a large number of outstanding international artists and companies.
For the season 2000/2001 Philipp was appointed theatre director by Hans Gratzer for the "Schauspielhaus Wien". Together they produced Baroque operas alternating with contemporary music-theatre productions for the course of a season, extra rebuilding the Schauspielhaus into an amphitheatre for this year. It was here that Philipp directed his first opera, "Piramo e Tisbe", a late opera seria by J. A. Hasse. This production also proved a huge success at the "styriarte" festival in Graz and was sent on tour to the Netherlands.
From then on, opera productions became Philipp’s main focus. The Monteverdi Project "ballo mortale" at the Viennese "Kammeroper", "Pagliacci" at the State Opera in Kiew, the operetta "Der Bettelstudent" at the "Tiroler Landestheater" in Innsbruck, Mozart`s "Die Schuldigkeit des Ersten Gebots" at the "Theater an der Wien" in 2006, Austria`s "Year of Mozart", "The Magic Flute" at Heidenheim open air Opera Festival, "The Tales of Hoffmann" at Opera on the Sea at Stralsund are just some examples of his work. In 2008 Philipp staged Marin Marais` "Alcione", a Tragédie Lyrique, which had not been performed for more than 240 years. As a collaboration with the "Serapionstheater" at the Odeon in Vienna, the production was highly successful. In the same year he directed - together with his father Nikolaus Harnoncourt - "Idomeneo" at the "styriarte" in Graz.
Philipp Harnoncourt also addresses the more intimate forms of theatre by directing a series of operas performed at Kirchstetten Castle with a chamber orchestra and young artists. There he staged daring interpretations of "Cosi fan Tutte", "The Abduction from the Seraglio" and "La Cenenerentola".
The season 2009/2010 he shows a decided focus on contemporary opera: "The Last Supper" by Harrison Birtwistle for the "Neue Oper Wien", followed by Maxwell Davies' "Eight Songs for a Mad King" and Salvatiore Sciarrino`s "L`Infinito Nero". A huge success with a lot of attention from the press and media was Prokofjew`s "Fiery Angel" at the Odeon, another collaboration with the "Serapionstheater". Together with the artist-collective Gaigg/Harnoncourt/Lang/Ritsch Philipp produced "maschinenhalle#1" , the opening of the avantgarde-festival "steirischer herbst", a performance-installation with 12 robot-pianos and 12 dancers.
In 2011 Philipp Harnoncourt staged "Rodelinda" by G. F. Händel at the "Theater an der Wien" and Bedrich Smetanas "The Bartered Bride" at the "styriarte" in Graz. After a number of stage designs, for example the glass labyrinth he created for “wenn die Kinder Steine ins Wasser werfen” at the Schauspielhaus in Vienna, he staged 2013 “Rosenkavalier” at MIR in Gelsenkirchen, Offenbach`s “Barbe Bleue” at the “styriarte” in Graz and “Wiener Blut”, the operetta by J. Strauss, open air at the Schlossfestspiele Langenlois. As a co-founder of EntArte Opera, an artist-collective devoted to composers ostracized by the Nazi regime, he staged “Der Schatzgräber” by Franz Schreker in a huge factory building at the “Brucknerfest Linz”.
2015 he interpreted J. S. Bachs` Johannes Passion together with a group of refugees and migrants (who shared the role of Jesus) at the opera house Wuppertal; followed by a “Gipsy Baron” by Strauss; by the mean of a narrator the historical background was brought into the play. 2016 Philipp directed G. F. Handel’s “Sosarme, Re di Media” at Händelfestspiele Halle, also contributing his own stage set. In autumn he debuted highly successfully at the Teatro alla Scala di Milano with “Porgy and Bess” (in forma semiscenica) in a production dedicated to his recently passed away father. 2017 another Johannes Passion will follow, this time by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, at Weimar`s Deutsches Nationaltheater.