Alvis Hermanis

Biography

Born in 1965 in Riga, Latvia, Alvis Hermanis was recently named among the ten most influential European theatre personalities of the last decade by DU Magazine, Swiss periodical for arts and culture.

Mr. Hermanis currently works with major European theatre companies, including Burgtheater Vienna, Schaubühne Berlin, Münchner Kammerspiele and Schauspielhaus Zürich; and in opera houses, including Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Opéra National de Paris, Staatsoper im Schiller Theater in Berlin, Wiener Staatsoper and La Monnaie Brussels.

He has staged operas at the Salzburger Festspiele since 2012. His opera stagings include among others Il trovatore featuring Plácido Domingo and Anna Netrebko (2014) and Die Liebe der Danae (2016) at the Salzburger Festspiele, La Damnation de Faust featuring Jonas Kaufman with Opéra National de Paris in 2015, I due Foscari featuring Plácido Domingo and Madama Butterfly with Teatro alla Scala in 2016 and Parsifal at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2017.

Mr. Hermanis’s theatre productions have been presented at major theatre festivals ranging from Avignon to Edinburgh, and have toured more than 40 countries. His many accolades include the Europe Prize New Theatre Realities, the Stanislavsky Award, two Golden Mask Awards (Moscow), Max Reinhardt Pen (Salzburger Festspiele), Nestroy Preis (Austria) and the Konrad Wolf Award (Germany).

He has been artistic director of The New Riga Theatre since 1997.