Alfred Kirchner
Director
© Agentur
Alfred Kirchner is well known to audiences in Frankfurt for his productions of Jenůfa and Die Soldaten (both conducted by Michael Gielen), Un ballo in Maschera, Eugene Onegin, Stephan Climax, Manon Lescaut, Tosca and La Bohème. Other highlights in his long and successful career included Khovanshchina with Claudio Abbado at the Vienna State Opera, Tristan und Isolde with Sir Simon Rattle and Ingo Metzmacher in Amsterdam, where he also staged Don Giovanni, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and the first productions in America of Henze's We come to the river and Venus and Adonis, at Santa Fe Opera. He created a new Ring (1994-1998) in Bayreuth, conducted by James Levine. Alfred Kirchner is passionate about works receiving their world premieres, and being performed in any given country for the first time, which has resulted in performances of works by Martin Walser, Peter Turrini, Heiner Müller, Thomas Bernhard, Herbert Achternbusch, Dario Fo, Maxim Gorki, Hans Zender, Udo Zimmermann and Helmut Lachenmann. This director studied acting at the Max Reinhardt School in Berlin. After time spent at Theater Bremen, the Staatstheater in Stuttgart, Schauspiel Bochum and the Burgtheater in Vienna he became a member of Berlin's State Drama Theatres' Direktorium. Alfred Kirchner worked as a professor at the University for Music in Hamburg, the Hanns Eisler Schule in Berlin and Athens University in Georgia.