Michael Levine is named set designer of the year

Berlin/Bregenz, 28.9.23. Michael Levine has been named Set Designer of the Year by the respected specialist magazine Opernwelt. The award is in recognition of his designs for Madame Butterfly on the lake stage at the Bregenz Festival and for Turandot at Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam.

The Bregenz Festival production of Madame Butterfly directed by Andreas Homoki on a set designed by Michael Levine proved hugely popular with audiences, playing to 100 and 99 percent capacity respectively in the summer of 2022 and 2023. It was the first time the Giacomo Puccini opera had been given on the lake stage at Bregenz.

“I’m very happy and also moved that Michael Levine has received this renowned, marvellous award for his visionary idea of a sheet of white paper on Lake Constance. Congratulations, Michael! And congratulations to all the artists and personnel involved in this production,” said the festival’s artistic director Elisabeth Sobotka.

“This award means a great deal to me. It’s a tremendous acknowledgement and appreciation of the work on an idea and its realisation, which wouldn’t have been possible without many other people. My thanks go to everyone involved at the Bregenz Festival, above all in the technical department,” Michael Levine said.

Opernwelt, a music theatre magazine published in Berlin, conducts an annual survey of around 50 critics to select the most impressive achievements of the season just ended. It primarily considers the theatre scene in German-speaking countries but also looks further afield. The awards are regarded as the most significant in the music theatre industry worldwide. 

Madame Butterfly is to be followed by Der Freischütz as the opera on the lake stage in summer 2024 and 2025. The director will by Philip Stölzl, responsible for a spectacular Rigoletto production there in summer 2019. Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz, premiered in 1821, is one of the most popular operas in the German-speaking world but has never been performed on the Bregenz Festival lake stage.

The 2024 Bregenz Festival runs from 17 July to 18 August. For tickets or information please visit www.bregenzerfestspiele.com or call tel. 0043 5574 4076.

(ar)