Barrie Kosky
Barrie Kosky | |
---|---|
Born | Opera director | 18 February 1967
Organizations | Komische Oper Berlin |
Awards | International Opera Awards |
Barrie Kosky[N 1] (born 18 February 1967) is an Australian theatre and opera director.[N 2] Based at the Komische Oper Berlin, he has worked internationally.
Biography
Kosky was born in Melbourne, the grandson of Jewish emigrants from Europe. He attended Melbourne Grammar School where he performed in Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui in 1981, Shakespeare's Othello in 1982, and later directed his first play. Among many other later famous Australian artists, he also worked at the St Martins Youth Arts Centre. In 1985, he then began studies in piano and music history at the University of Melbourne.[1]
Career
In 1989, Kosky directed the Australian premiere of Michael Tippett's
For the
In 1996, he directed Verdi's Nabucco (recorded on DVD by ABC Television.[3]) and Wagner's The Flying Dutchman for Opera Australia, a work which he revisited in 2006 at the Aalto-Musiktheater in Essen, Germany. Also in 1996, Kosky was appointed director of the Adelaide Festival, at 29 years the youngest person ever in that position. Following that appointment, the 50-minute documentary Kosky in Paradise examined his ideas and creative motivations.[4]
In 1997, he directed Molière's Tartuffe in Christopher Hampton's translation at the Sydney Theatre Company (STC). In 1998, he directed Mourning Becomes Electra for the STC, and Shakespeare's King Lear for the Bell Shakespeare company's touring production. In 1999, Kosky directed Alban Berg's Wozzeck for the Sydney Opera House. In 2000, Kosky directed Ted Hughes' adaption of Seneca's Oedipus at the Sydney Theatre Company.
From 2001 to 2005, Kosky was co-director of the
In 2006, he directed Tom Wright's[N 6] eight-hour play The Lost Echo –based on Ovid's Metamorphoses and Euripides' The Bacchae– for the Actors Company at the STC; the play won five Helpmann Awards.[8] In the same year, Kosky directed in Germany Der fliegende Holländer at the Aalto-Musiktheater and Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream at the Theater Bremen.
In 2007, Kosky presented his Vienna production of L'incoronazione di Poppea at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival.[9] In that year, he also directed Britten's Peter Grimes for the Staatsoper Hannover, and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for the Aalto-Musiktheater which received a nomination for the Faust Award.
In January 2008, he directed at the same house
Following several productions in the past at the
Kosky won the award for Best Director at the 2014 International Opera Awards.[12]
In 2017, Kosky became the first Jewish director at the Bayreuth Festival with his production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.[13] He was also the first person who was not a member of the Wagner family to direct that opera there.[14]
Kosky's production of Shostakovich's The Nose in a new English-language version by David Pountney for The Royal Opera, Opera Australia and the Komische Oper Berlin premiered in 2016 at the Royal Opera House in London, Kosky's debut at that house, and in 2018 at the Sydney Opera House and in Berlin.[15] He returned to The Royal Opera in 2018 to present a controversial staging of Bizet's Carmen that was first staged at Oper Frankfurt in June 2017.[16][17]
Commenting on the leading positions held by Jews in the Berlin cultural institutions, Kosky, who depicts himself as a "gay Jewish kangaroo", said:
...the more Jews the better in Berlin – bring it on! If you look at Berlin before the war, all the theatres were owned by Jews, it was like Broadway. They say that half the orchestras were full of Jewish musicians, all the major theatre directors were Jews.[18]
In January 2019, the Komische Oper Berlin announced that Kosky is to stand down as intendant at the close of the 2021/22 season, and subsequently to continue his affiliation with the company as in-house director. Kosky had stated his own intention to return to a freelance career as a stage director with this announcement.[19]
After staging Gluck's Armide at the Dutch National Opera in 2013, Kosky returned to direct a cycle of three Puccini operas: Tosca (early 2022), Turandot (late 2022), and Il trittico (2023).[20] At the Vienna State Opera he was engaged for a Da Ponte cycle of Mozart operas, starting with Don Giovanni (in 2021) and Le nozze di Figaro (in 2023).[21] Così fan tutte is due in June 2024.
Awards
- 2022: Prize for Understanding and Tolerance, Jewish Museum Berlin[22]
- 2024: Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Verdienstkreuz am Bande)[23]
References
Notes
- ^ Barrie Kosky's name is sometimes misspelled as Barry Kosky, Barrie Koski, Barrie Koskie.
- ^ Kosky also plays the piano, as he did in his production of Monteverdi's Poppea
- ^ At the Gilgul, Kosky worked with the set designer Peter Corrigan on many productions; this collaboration continued later, e.g. on Oedipus Rex, Nabucco, Lear.
- ^ Jurisic also played in Kosky's Poppea and many others of his productions.
- ^ Kosky had staged a Macbeth during his university years in Melbourne with Libbi Gorr in the title role.
- ^ Kosky and Tom Wright have worked together on several projects; their collaboration started when both where at Melbourne University.
- ^ In this collection of four essays (more are planned), Kosky was the only one not primarily a writer; the others were David Malouf, Germaine Greer and Blanche d'Alpuget.
Sources
- ^ Levin, Darren (2 October 2007). "From operatic epic to understated horror". The Australian Jewish News. Archived from the original on 4 August 2008. Retrieved 18 September 2008.
- ^ Eckersley, M. 1997. Soundings in the Dramaturgy of the Australian Theatre Director. University of Melbourne. Melbourne
- ^ Verdi – Nabucco / Opera Australia, Jonathan Summers (1996) ASIN B0015NR2FC
- ^ Kosky In Paradise (Screen Australia)[permanent dead link]
- ^ Schauspielhaus Wien – Geschichte und Archiv (in German)
- ^ Bryce Hallett: Kosky to head Berlin opera house[permanent dead link], The Sydney Morning Herald), 26 June 2008
- IMDb
- ^ Helpmann Awards Winners 2007 Archived 19 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Christiansen, Rupert (14 August 2007). "Edinburgh: Chilling interpretation of a savage classic". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 16 September 2008.[dead link]
- ^ "1927: A theatre company with a twist". The Guardian. 27 June 2019 – via Edinburgh International Festival.
- ^ "Barrie Kosky brings Shostakovich's The Nose to Sydney" by Matthew Westwood, The Australian, 20 February 2018 (subscription required)
- ^ "Opera Awards 2014" Archived 12 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Barrie Kosky's probing Meistersinger wows at Bayreuth" by Justine Nguyen, Limelight, 31 July 2017
- ^ "Bad boy makes good", Limelight, January–February 2017, p. 50
- ^ "An escaped nose causes trouble in an opera described as Monty Pythonesque" by Barney Zwarts, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 February 2018
- ^ "Carmen review – Bizet meets Busby Berkeley" by Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 7 February 2018
- YouTube, Carmen, Oper Frankfurt2017 (in German)
- ^ Neil Fisher, "Barrie Kosky says opera 'is art, there are no rules'", The Australian, 21 July 2015]
- ^ "Senator for Culture Klaus Lederer Presents the Komische Oper Berlin's New Leadership Team, Beginning 2022/23" (PDF) (Press release). Komische Oper Berlin. 31 January 2019. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 November 2021. Retrieved 2 November 2021.
- ^ Tosca, 12 April – 8 May 2022; Turandot, 2–30 December 2022; "Barry Kosky". Dutch National Opera.
- ^ "Kosky's strongly cast Figaro brings down the house at the Wiener Staatsoper", 14 March 2023, Bachtrack
- ^ "Preis für Verständigung und Toleranz an Barrie Kosky und Herta Müller". Neue Musikzeitung (in German). Retrieved 12 October 2022.
- ^ "Bundesverdienstkreuz für zwölf Personen des Kulturlebens – Kulturstaatsministerin Roth: 'Wichtige Vorbilder für die Menschen in unserem Land' ", press release, German Federal Government, 9 April 2024
Further reading
- ISBN 978-3-902494-34-4(in German)
- Farrell, Charlotte (2021): Barrie Kosky on the Contemporary Australian Stage: Affect, Post-Tragedy, Emergency. Routledge, Abingdon. ISBN 9780367407841
- Kosky, Barrie (2008): On Ecstasy. Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne. ISBN 978-0-522-85534-0
- ISBN 978-3-030-75027-5