Hartmut Schörghofer

Biography

Born in Salzburg, Hartmut Schörghofer studied interior architecture in Linz and set design at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. While still a student he began assisting Karl-Ernst Herrmann and Peter Mussbach, including within the Salzburger Festspiele and Wiener Festwochen, at the Théátre de la Monnaie in Brussels, at the Burgtheater in Vienna and Oper Frankfurt. Since 1989 he has worked as a set designer. He has become increasingly fascinated by directing operas in relation to creating the space as an independently conceived form of the “Gesamtkunstwerk” set in an unusual milieu. The most recent showcases include the production of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Wagner Days in Budapest and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle at the Hungarian State Opera. He has collaborated with theatres in France, Belgium, Sweden, Slovenia and Portugal, and has regularly worked in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. As a set designer, he has gained great renown in Lyon, Dresden, Monte Carlo and Stockholm. His most remarkable works include productions of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at the Volksoper in Vienna, Verdi’s Falstaff and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Semperoper in Dresden, Gerhard Schedl’s Julie and Jean, Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Klangbogen Festival in Vienna, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw in Graz, Busoni’s Faust in Ulm, Strauss’s Daphne at the Kleine Festspielhaus in Salzburg and the Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Verdi’s La traviata at the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg and Un ballo in maschera at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Dvořák’s Rusalka at the Theater Erfurt and the Canadian Opera Company Toronto, Offenbach’s Les contes d‘Hoffmann at the Staatsoper Hamburg, and Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades at the Royal Opera in Stockholm, as well as numerous Mozart projects. He launched his career as a stage director and collaboration with the conductor Adam Fischer at the Haydn Festspiele in Eisenstadt with the production of the opera L‘infedeltŕ delusa. His artistic partners include Axel Köhler, G. H. Seebach, Peter Mussbach, Ernst-Theo Richter, Friedrich Meyer-Oertel, Christine Mielitz, Olivier Tambosi, Roland Schwab, Reto Nickler and Dmitry Bertman.