About
Olaf A. Schmitt, is a German dramaturge. He has served as chief dramaturge of the Bregenz Festival since 2015 and as artistic director of the Kassel music festival since 2016.
Schmitt studied theatre, media and musicology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. Already during his studies he gained professional experience at the Stuttgart state Opera, at the Salzburg festival and at the Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen.[1] He has received awards from the Academy of music theatre today, the Deutsche Bank Foundation and from the Richard Wagner scholarship Foundation. In 2003, he was an employee of the Heiner Müller handbook, edited by Hans-Thies Lehmann and Patrick Primavesi, his contributions are donations, sacrifices, death; Heiner Goebbels; Compositions; bibliography in 2004 he was co-editor of the Festschrift for the 60th birthday of his teacher Hans-Thies Lehmann.
From 2005 to 2008, his first engagement led him to the Theater Heidelberg as a musical dramaturge, where he was involved in an interactive project called Das neue Wunderhorn, which integrated the city, amateur musicians and schools and was then published on a DVD and in a book.[2] as of 2008, he was engaged for five years as an Opera dramaturg at the Bavarian state Opera in Munich, where he worked together with the Directors, Martin Kušej, Barrie Kosky and Andreas kriegenburg, and composers Peter Eötvös and Miroslav Srnka. In 2012, he was one of the production dramaturges, for Kriegenburgs Interpretation of the Ring of the Nibelung in the run-up to the Wagner-year 2013. At the Cologne Opera, he oversaw in the second half of 2012, the new production of Nozze di Figaro by Benjamin Schad, at the Royal Opera Covent Garden in London, he has performed in 2014 as a Dramaturg for productions of Idomeneo, directed by Martin Kušej.
In the second half of 2014, he joined as chief dramaturge of the Bregenz Festival in the new artistic direction of Elisabeth Sobotka and was involved in the successful festival of 2015 and 2016 in a leading Position. The play at the lake of these two Festival years, Puccini's Turandot, received wide approval from the audience, two exemplary productions at the festival House attracted the attention and approval of the press and opera world: 2015 Offenbach's Les Contes d'hoffmann (staged by Stefan Herheim) with Daniel Johansson in the title role and in 2016 the rediscovery of Franco Faccios Amleto (staged
Since 2016 Schmitt is in addition to the Bregenz function – as the successor of Dieter Rexroth, Artistic Director of the Kassel music days. These were founded in 1933 by Bärenreiter-Verlag and the Arbeitskreis für Hausmusik (today International Working Group for music), take place at the end of October/beginning of November and are organized since 1982 as a non-profit association. Schmitt wants to"present and experience the many facets of music, even beyond genre categories". In particular, he wants to enable the audience to meet with the artists involved and provide surprises: "I want to make the ears wonder."[3]
In his first season in Kassel, the new director of the festival presented the rarely played baroque opera Los Elementos by the Spanish composer Antonio de Literes (1673-1747) in a co-production with the Staatstheater Kassel. It conducted Jörg Halubek, staged, choreographed and decorated out of Zenta Haerter. Furthermore, the Finnish accordion-virtuoso Kimmo Pohjonen in various formats – concert and Film – was to be seen and heard. The opening concert was performed by the Prague Ensemble Collegium 1704 and Collegium Vocale 1704 with Monteverdi's Marienvesper. The Festival 2017 was under the Motto " What do you dare?"and presented the cellist Matthew Barley, the mandolinist Avi Avital and the Hang player Manu Delago in various concerts, including a surprise concert, the program of which the three musicians worked exclusively on several days in Kassel. In 2018, the Kassel music festival was dedicated to the Motto " When do you sing?"and left the audience among others. the Countertenor Valer Sabadus, the soprano Herdís Jónasdóttir with the orchestra in the staircase, the art Pfeifer Nikolaus Habjan, the mezzo-soprano Okka von der Damerau with the pianist Karola Theill, Rossini's Stabat Mater with the state orchestra of Kassel, Cantiamo Kassel under General music Director, Francesco Angelico, and the Syrian singer Rasha Rizk with the Damascus String experience Quintet. Since 2016, the Apollon Musagète Quartet presents every year a new revised Quartet Antonín, performing dvorák's.
He is a lecturer at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste (State Academy of Fine Arts) in Stuttgart and also teaches at the Bayerische Theaterakademie in Munich as well as at the Universities of Frankfurt am Main and Zurich. He held lectures in Bayreuth and the United States, among others.