Michael Simon

Michael Simon is a german designer and director for ballett, drama and opera. His designs have been seen all over the world from Australia to Canada and the US, from Japan to China and throughout Europe.

He has worked for many years with the choreographers William Forsythe and and Jirí Kylián. The titles of some of the works are Isabel’s Dance, Impressing the Czar, Limb’s Theorem , Kaguyahime, Stepping Stones, Whereabouts Unknown, Wings of Wax, Arcimboldo, One of a kind, Doux Messonges and Zugvögel.

The working relationship with Pierre Audi, director of the Amsterdam Opera started in 1990 with Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria  and continued until 2011 with the two Iphigenie operas by Gluck.

Michael Simon started also directing projects like Elements of Crime (1988) with Nederlands Dans Theater, Newtons Casino (1990), Roman Dogs (1991) – together with composer Heiner Goebbels – for Theater am Turm in Frankfurt.  The first opera he directed in Basel: Die Menschen, Darmstadt: Fliegender Holländer, Bremen: Moses and Aron and specially Bonn where he directed several contemporary operas. He staged the world premiere of “L espace dernier” by Matthias Pintscher 2004 at the Paris Opera Bastille. Since his debut as drama director with Black Rider  1994 in Dortmund he has been invited to theaters like Schaubuehne Berlin, Volksbühne Berlin, Burgtheater Vienna, Duesseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Residenztheater Munich. His latest productions in 2012 were Rechnitz from Elfriede Jelinek at Schauspielhaus Graz and the opera Outcast at Nationaltheater Mannheim, Blaubart in Bern and Salomein Braunschweig 2013.

Michael Simon is teaching stage and lighting design. 1998 to 2004 at HfG Karlsruhe and since 2008 at ZHdK Zurich.

Source: http://www.michaelsimon.de/page13.php