Thomas Mika
Biography
The stage director, set and costume designer Thomas Mika studied opera directing at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg. In 2006, he made his first design, for the Staatsballett Berlin, and also his first opera production, of Georges Bizet’s Carmen, for Ensemble Escritura Hamburg. In 2020 he created an adaptation of Franz Lehár’s Der Graf von Luxemburg for the Estonian National Opera, and this year a production of P. I. Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta for the Landestheater Salzburg.
Thomas Mika’s primary focus is dance. He has collaborated with the contemporary choreographers Alejandro Cerrudo, Martin Chaix, Edward Clug, Dominique Dumais, Marco Goecke, Jack Lister, Trey McIntyre, Sofia Nappi, Juliano Nunes, Kevin O’Day and Jeroen Verbruggen. When it comes to the classical repertoire, he has designed sets and costumes for productions of John Cranko’s Onegin and Romeo and Juliet, Derek Deane’s The Lady of the Camellias, Alexey Fadeyechev’s and Nina Ananiashvili’s adaptations of Don Quixote, Ben Van Cauwenbergh’s Romeo and Juliet, as well as Thomas Edur’s, Eno Peci’s and Sabrina Sadowska’s versions of Swan Lake.
Thomas Mika has worked with numerous internationally renowned companies, including the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris, Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Staatsoper Wien, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opernhaus Zürich, Staatstheater Stuttgart, San Francisco War Memorial Opera, Wortham Theater Center in Houston, Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Chicago, National Centre of the Performing Arts in Beijing, Hong Kong Culture Centre, Seoul Arts Centre, LG Art Centre in Seoul, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Staatsoper Hannover, Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Staatstheater Darmstadt, Aalto-Theater Essen, Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, Hungarian National Opera, Polish National Opera, Estonian National Opera, Novosibirsk State Theatre of Opera and Ballet, Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb and the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp and Gent.