Historian and librettist. Teaches at Austrian universities
and collaborates with European newspapers and magazines
including the Salzburger Nachrichten, the Suddeutsche
Zeitung, Die Buhne and Opernwelt.
He writes the subtitles for operas, annotations for CDs, texts for programmes
and booklets and translates libretti.
He works
with such theatres as La Scala, the Opera Comique in Paris, the Lucerne Theatre, the Greek National Opera,
the Wiener Volksoper, the Wiener Kammeroper and the Wiener Musikverein and the festivals Mozartwoche in Salzburg,
Salzburg’s Osternfestspiele, the Salzburg Festival, the Opera Festival
In Macerata, the Bremen Music Festival and the Mozart at
Schonbrunn festival.
In 2007 he was involved in preparations for
the world premiere of the opera Franz Jagerstatter at the Franciscan
Cathedral in Graz, and in 2009 he took part in the Mariinsky
Theatre’s production of Idomeneo, re di Creta.
He has worked with
stage directors including Philip Harlow, Nicolas Brieger, Robert
Herzl, Lutz Hochstrate, Dominique Mentha and Graham Vick. As
A director, he has staged Xenakis’ opera Oresteia (Wiener Moderne
festival, 2000), Mozart’s Zaide and Daniel Schnyder’s Casanova
(New York’s Skirball Cultural Center, 2005).