This is the fourth opera Claus Guth has directed in Frankfurt, following on from Verdi’s Ein Maskenball/Un ballo in maschera (2005/06), Puccini’s Il trittico (2007/08) and Strauss’ Daphne (for which he was awarded a 2010 FAUST German Theatre Prize). Other new productions this season are Il ritorno d’ Ulisse for the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, where he recently staged Handel’s Messiah,Lohengrin at La Scala Milan, Helmut Oehring’s SehnSuchtMeer/LongingSea (world premiere) at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at the Staatsoper in Berlin. He is the director of the current Ring in Hamburg and has directed Parsifal at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Tannhäuser at the Vienna State Opera and Der fliegende Holländer/The Flying Dutchman in Bayreuth. Other work in recent seasons has included several productions at the Salzburg Festival (Luciano Berio’s Cronaca del Luogo, Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, Chaya Czernowin’s Adama and Mozart’s Zaide, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte). He was born in Frankfurt and studied philosophy, German, theatre and operatic direction at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. He made his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich with Luisa Miller.