In his ten years as Artistic Director of Royal Danish Opera Kasper Holten has made audiences for opera laugh, cry and above all engage, in a series of provocative productions ranging from Ligeti’s scatological Le grand macabre to Verdi’s Don Carlos. Above all his landmark staging of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen - aka The Copenhagen Ring - has now been internationally acclaimed following its release on DVD by Decca.
His is currently preparing a contemporary and ground-breaking motion picture JUAN based on Mozart’s Don Giovanni, but sung in a modern English translation and filmed on locations in Budapest with a cast including Christopher Maltman, Mikhail Petrenko, Elizabeth Futral, Eric Halfvorson and Maria Bengtsson. The movie will be released in 2010.
Outside Scandinavia Kasper Holten has staged a string of productions for the Theater an der Wien which include Rihm’s Jakob Lenz, Menotti's Goya (starring Placido Domingo), and Le nozze di Figaro; and he returns to Vienna this season for Johannes Kalitzke’s new opera – Die Besenennen – based on a novel by Witold Gombrowicz. Closer to home he directs a new production of Die Tote Stadt for Finnish National Opera conducted by Mikko Franck; and for Copenhagen new productions of Tannhauser, Die Frau ohne Schatten, My Fair Lady and, notably, Dancer in the Dark, a newly commissioned opera by Poul Ruders based on the film by Lars von Trier. He has also directed operas in Lyon, Moscow, New York, San Francisco, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Reykjavik. Future engagements include productions in Oslo and Berlin.
Biography