Roland Schwab
Regisseur
Roland Schwab, born 1969 in Saint Cloud/Paris, grew up in Munich. In 1992 he began a degree course in Music Theatre Directing at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre under Prof. Götz Friedrich. During the course of his studies he was a guest student and assistant in a number of institutions including Opéra du Rhin Strasbourg, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hamburgische Staatsoper, and Oper Zürich with Prof. Renate Ackermann, Götz Friedrich, Harry Kupfer and Ruth Berghaus.
He is especially indebted to Ruth Berghaus, whose master student he became in 1994, for important impulses. In 1997 he staged “Frank Alert meets Brecht“ as a guest performance at the Berliner Ensemble. After completing his degree in Hamburg with distinction, Roland Schwab was the assistant to Christine Mielitz at the Meininger Theater (“Der Ring des Nibelungen“) from 1998, ultimately becoming Senior Director there from 2002. At the Meininger Theater he staged two Mozart productions, “Così fan tutte“ (2001) and “Le Nozze di Figaro“ (2002), which attracted a great deal of attention. In subsequent years Roland Schwab was a visiting director at the Theater Münster (“Pariser Leben“), the Theater Freiburg (“Lucia di Lammermoor“), the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck (“Roméo et Juliette“), the Musiktheater im Revier (“Aida“ by Giuseppe Verdi, “Merlin“ by Isaac Albeniz - German premiere 2011), the Opera Bergen, Norway („Turandot“), the Theater Gera (“Werther“), the Landestheater Linz (“Manon“, “Les Dialogues des Carmélites“), the Anhaltischen Theater Dessau (“Ein Maskenball“), the Theater Augsburg (“La finta giardiniera“), the Oper Bonn (“La Sonnambula“), the Oper Dortmund (“The Rake’s Progress“) and at the Staatstheater Braunschweig (“Farnace“ by Antonio Vivaldi, “Orlando“ by Peter Aderhold, as well as “Tosca“), the Saarländisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken (“Guillaume Tell“) and the International Brucknerfest Linz 2014 (“Ulenspiegel“ by Walter Braunfels). In 2007 he devoted himself to baroque opera with two versions of the “Rushing Roland”, “Orlando Furioso“ by Antonio Vivaldi and “Orlando“ by Georg Friedrich Handel at the Niederbayerisches Landestheater, as well as at the Theater Biel Solothurn.
Important and much discussed work in recent times include his three productions for Deutsche Oper Berlin, “Mozartfragmente” (during Mozart Year in 2006), “Tiefland” by Eugen d ́Albert (2007) and Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” (2010). This production was invited to the opera festival of Peralada/Spain in 2012, “Otello” by Giuseppe Verdi at the Aalto-Theater Essen (2019), as well as “Mefistofele” by Arrigo Boito at the Bayerische Staatsoper (2015). Roland Schwab lives with his wife, the Georgian mezzo soprano Khatuna Mikaberidze, and their son in Munich.