About
Barbara de Limburg designs for both theatre and opera, producing beautiful and imaginative sets that are in harmony with and complement fully the work of the directors with whom she collaborates.
Born in Brussels, she studied set design at La Cambre, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels in Brussels, graduating in 1996. Initially she worked mainly in theatre and in dance, expanding into opera in recent years. She worked as assistant to Chantal Thomas on opera projects including Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (L’Opéra national de Paris, Bastille and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden) and La Fille du Régiment (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, New York).
Her debut opera design was Massenet’s Cendrillon for the Santa Fe Opera in 2006, directed by Laurent Pelly. This collaboration continued in 2007 with Mozart’s La Finta semplice (Theater an der Wien), Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel (Glyndebourne Festival 2008, Glyndebourne Tour 2008, 2013 and revival Opéra de Lyon 2010), Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen (Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto 2008 and Maggio Musicale, Florence 2009), Massenet’s Don Quichotte (La Monnaie, Brussels and Teatro Massimo, Palermo 2010) and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Grand Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse 2010). Work with director Laura Scozzi includes set design for Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini (2008) and Rossini’s Il viaggio à Reims for Nuremberg State Opera in 2011. Other projects include designs for Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle with Jean-Philippe Delavault in Tourcoing.
Recent work in the opera house includes a highly-successful collaboration with Laurent Pelly on Ravel’s L'enfant et les sortilèges, a co-production for Glyndebourne Festival (2012) and Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto (2013), and also available on DVD (FRA Musica). In 2013, she designed La Traviata for Angers Nantes Opéra (director Emmanuel Bastet) and other recent work includes numerous revivals of her existing designs, notably Cendrillon at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (2011), La Monnaie, Brussels (2011), Opéra de Lille (2012) and Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona (2013) and L'enfant et les sortilèges in Rome (2014).
Recent theatre designs include Below the belt for Théâtre Varia Brussels and Théâtre National de Bordeaux with Delphine Salkin, Tennessee Williams – Short Stories (director Agathe Mélinand) at Théâtre National de Toulouse and most recently, Erik Satie - Mémoires d’un Amnésique, also in Toulouse, and which will enjoy revival in 2014 at TGP – Saint Denis, Théâtre de Sartrouville and TNT.
Dance projects have included a successful collaboration with choreographer Bud Blumenthal, their productions together including Groundscape in Essen and Brussels, Les Reflets d’Ulysse in Liège in 2005 and Brussels in 2006 and Dowhileloop in both Brussels and Paris in 2007.