German stage director Roland Schwabs recent inlcude TRISTAN UND ISOLDE at Bayreuther Festspiele, ROSENKAVALIER at Felsenreitschule Salzburg, ERNANI at Theater Bonn, IL TRITTICO at Aalto, DER BAJAZZO at Theater Essen, AIDA at Danish National Opera, HÄNSEL UND GRETEL at Bayerische Theaterakademie, FRAUENLIEBE Robert Schumann at HfMDK Frankfurt. Other recent productions include Staatstheater Braunschweig ORLANDO (world premiere by Peter Aderhold) and TOSCA, Bayerische Staatsoper (MEFISTOFELE von Arrigo Boito).
Born in Saint Cloud/Paris, grew up in Munich. In 1992, after completing a number of university semesters in the subjects of German and Physics, he began a degree course in Music Theatre Directing at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre under Prof. Götz Friedrich. During the course of his studies he was a guest student and assistant in a number of institutions including Opéra du Rhin Strasbourg, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hamburgische Staatsoper, and Oper Zürich with Prof. Renate Ackermann, Götz Friedrich, Harry Kupfer and Ruth Berghaus. He is especially indebted to Ruth Berghaus, whose master student he became in 1994, for important impulses. In 1997 he staged FRANK ALERT MEETS BRECHT as a guest performance at the Berliner Ensemble. After completing his degree in Hamburg with distinction, Roland Schwab was the assistant to Christine Mielitz at the Meininger Theater (DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN) from 1998, ultimately becoming Senior Director there from 2002. At the Meininger Theater he staged two Mozart productions, COSI FAN TUTTE (2001) and LE NOZZE DI FIGARO (2002), which attracted a great deal of attention. In subsequent years Roland Schwab was a visiting director at the Theater Münster (PARISER LEBEN), the Theater Freiburg (LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR), the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck (ROMEO ET JULIETTE), the Musiktheater im Revier (AIDA), the Opera Bergen, Norway (TURANDOT), the Theater Gera (WERTHER), the Landestheater Linz (MANON, LES DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES), the Anhaltischen Theater Dessau (EIN MASKENBALL), the Theater Augsburg (LA FINTA GIARDINIERA), the Oper Bonn (LA SONNAMBULA) and at the Staatstheater Braunschweig (FARNACE). In 2007 he devoted himself to baroque opera with two versions of the “Rushing Roland”, ORLANDO FURIOSO by Antonio Vivaldi and ORLANDO by Georg Friedrich Handel at the Niederbayerisches Landestheater, as well as at the Theater Biel Solothurn.
Important and much discussed work in recent times include THE RAKE`S PROGRESS at Oper Dortmund (2008), MERLIN by Isaac Albeniz at the Musiktheater im Revier (German premiere 2011), ULENSPIEGEL by Walter Braunfels at the International Brucknerfest Linz 2014, and his three productions for Deutsche Oper Berlin, MOZARTFRAGMENTE (during Mozart Year in 2006), TIEFLAND by Eugen d´Albert (2007) and Mozart’s DON GIOVANNI (2010). This production was invited to the opera festival of Peralada/Spain in 2012.
