Perceptive, inventive and involving, the productions of opera director Eva Buchmann are responsive to the scale and nature of their environment. Whether conceived for a specific opera house or concert hall, or for touring a diversity of venues, her stagings resonate with immediacy and authenticity.

Scrupulous in her interpretation of both the libretto and the score, Buchmann takes a thoughtful, fresh approach, whether dealing with mainstream repertoire, the revival of a rare work, or a world premiere. Her insights derive not only from her experience in music theatre around the world, but from her professional training as a cellist, psychologist and music therapist.

Among her projects in 2023 are a concert staging of Beethoven’s Fidelio at Zurich’s Tonhalle, conducted by Paavo Järvi and starring Jacquelyn Wagner and Michael Schade, and a themed pairing of Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen;this will be seen at the Punto Arte Festival in Tuscany, which Buchmann established with conductor Jan Willem de Vriend in Tuscany in 2019.

Two Punto Arte Festival productions that have toured extensively in Europe are Haydn’s Comedy Lo speziale, in which a Fiat 500 is used as part of the stage set and also for storing sets and props, and Erich Ziegler’s Ludmilla, a cabaret-inspired satire from 1944: rediscovered in 2016, it was created during the Jewish composer’s internment in the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands. In 2023, Lo speziale (already seen in such cities as Zurich with Tonhalle Orchester, Frankfurt with the Radio Symphony Orchestra (HR), Barcelona with Orchestra Simfònica de Barcelona i National de Catalunya and on tour with Kölner Kammerochester) visits Trondheim. Ludmilla, touring the Netherlands in 2023, will travel in March 2024 to the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas for its US premiere with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

Eva Buchmann ’s collaborations around Europe with Jan Willem de Vriend include: Don Giovanni (Amsterdam, Basel, St. Moritz), the Singspiel partially attributed to Mozart Der Stein der Weisen (Łódź, Belgium and the Netherlands), Rossinis La Gazzetta (Basel, St. Moritz with the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra), Haydn Il mondo della luna (Łódź and Trondheim with Trondheim Symfonie Orkest & Opera), Händel’s Agrippina (on a tour starting from the Netherlands under the patronage of the Dutch government through the capitals of the European candidate countries Prague, Bratislava, Ljubljana, Budapest and Warsaw with the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam) and Orlando; Bibers Arminio, Salieris Prima la musica, Telemanns Pimpinone und Johann Sebastian Bachs Jagd- und Kaffee-Kantaten at the Leipziger Bachfest.

Her other baroque and classical opera productions include Händel’s Alcina at the Nikikai Opera in Tokyo (2018) and Semele at the Teatr Wielki in Łódź (2017), Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Croatian National Theater Rijeka and in Italy (2018) as well as Così fan tutte for the Kraków Opera and the acting director for the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich.

She subsequently brought works by Verdi (La traviata), Rossini (La Cenerentola), Donizetti (Anna Bolena und Rita), Weber (Abu Hassan), Johann Strauss (Die Fledermaus), Mascagni (Cavalleria rusticana), Strawinsky (Mavra) und Géza Frid (Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank) to the stage. In 2018, on behalf of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, she staged the premiere of David Philip Hefti’s The Snow Queen, a musical story inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s work, for its 150th anniversary.

Her work also includes productions at Moscow’s Stanislavsky Theater and at festivals in Carmel (USA), Malta, St. Moritz, Udine and Amsterdam. Born and educated in Switzerland, Eva Buchmann now lives in Amsterdam. She is a guest lecturer in stage directing at the Łódź Academy of Music.

2023/2024
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