Manuel Braun
Video
© Lenja Schultze
This much sought-after director and video artist is back at Oper Frankfurt, where he designed videos for Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine and Verdi’s La forza del destino, for this new production of Rudi Stephan’s Die ersten Menschen (The first people), the world premiere of which took place in Frankfurt in 1920. He has been working with Tobias Kratzer and Rainer Sellmaier for many years at theatres including the Opéra national de Paris (Faust), Covent Garden in London (Fidelio), the Théâtre royal de la Monnaie in Brussels (Lucio Silla and Il trittico) and Theater an der Wien (La gazza ladra). He also designed videos for Tannhäuser at the 2019 Bayreuth Festival, which was voted »Production of the Year« by critics from Opernwelt magazine. A professional camera assistant and video editor, he started working as a Visual Jockey and video designer at an early age. Music videos directed by him have included Kae West’s Europe is lost, which was voted »Video of the Year« by the Association Silhouette de Paris in 2017. Worth mentioning are his Video tour of Beethoven 7 with Joana Mallwitz, Todtenfeier / Celebration of Death – a visualisation of the first movement of Mahler’s 2nd symphony, a short film, Antigone, which took him to the Berlin Theatertreffen (a big honour), and an online production of Romeo and Juliet, which earned him international acclaim.