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Biography

The internationally up-and-coming Swiss director is the winner of the 2019 Götz Friedrich Prize and was a semi-finalist at the Ring Award Graz 2020.

Since 2015, Nina Russi has staged musical theatre works at the Zürich Opera House, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Staatstheater Darmstadt, Mainfranken Theater Würzburg, Theater Aachen, Theater St. Gallen, and Konzert Theater Bern, among others. Her productions are characterised by psychologically subtle characters as well as energetic and strong visual realisations, always searching for existential and topical themes in the works and consistently illuminating the tradition-laden narrative structures from the female perspective.

As part of Leonard Bernstein's anniversary year 2018/2019, Nina Russi staged a double bill of his operatic works "A Quiet Place" and "Trouble in Tahiti" at Theater Aachen, which was celebrated by audiences and press alike. This was honoured by the German Opera Conference with the 2019 Götz Friedrich Prize. In the following seasons, she staged Antonio Vivaldi's "Bajazet (Il Tamerlano)" at the Staatstheater Nürnberg, Leoš Janáček's "The Makropulos Affair" and Richard Strauss' "Elektra" at the Mainfranken Theater Würzburg and Giuseppe Verdi's "La traviata" at the Theater St. Gallen.
Last season, she staged Georg Friedrich Händel's "Serse" at Zurich Opera House and will make her directorial debut at Darmstadt State Theatre in spring 2024 with Handel's "Alcina".

Other past productions at Zurich Opera House include Mark-Anthony Turnage's fantasy opera "Coraline", the highly acclaimed world premiere of the chamber opera "Der Traum von Dir" by Swiss composer Xavier Dayer, based on the novella "Brief einer Unbekannten" by Stefan Zweig, and the two contemporary children's operas "Die Gänsemagd" by Iris ter Schiphorst and "Gold!" by Leonard Evers. She staged the world premiere of the family opera "Reise nach Tripiti" at the Winterthur Theatre and the Konzert Theater Bern.

As a scholarship holder, Nina Russi has taken part in various international directing programmes: International Summer Arts Program in Watermill (NY) under the artistic direction of Robert Wilson; Directors’ Lab at the Lincoln Theater Center in New York; Internationales Forum at the Berlin Theatertreffen; scholarship programme of the Richard Wagner Foundation at the Bayreuth Festival. A directing scholarship from the European Network of Opera Academies took her to the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. She also took part in the Woman Opera Makers Workshop with Katie Mitchell at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.

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Artist Website

www.ninarussi.ch

Management

General Management

Artist Manager

Ingunn Sighvatsdóttir
Artist Manager
ingunn@orlob.net
Mobil: +49-173-2 067 821

Press

Bajazet (Il Tamerlano) / Staatstheater Nürnberg / 29.10.21 / Süddeutsche Zeitung

"zusammen mit der modernen szenischen Fassung von Nina Russi im wunderbar variablen Bühnenbild von Mathis Neidhardt ist das Ganze echtes Musik-Theater!"

Bajazet (Il Tamerlano) / Staatstheater Nürnberg / 25.10.21 / opern.news

"historisch informiert, im Heute spielend und gelungen"

Coraline / Zurich Opera / 16.11.19 / tagblatt.ch

"Action inmitten roter Samtsessel und Stuck"

Trouble in Tahiti & A Quiet Place / Theater Aachen / 16.02.19 / deropernfreund.de

"gelingt eine so unglaublich feingliedrige und auf den Punkt gebrachte Inszenierung"

Trouble in Tahiti & A Quiet Place / Theater Aachen / 10.02.19 / die-deutsche-buehne.de

"Bemerkenswert phantasievoll und voll Funken sprühendem Witz"

Trouble in Tahiti & A Quiet Place / Theater Aachen / 10.02.19 / onlinemerker.com

"Mit solchen Querverbindungen, die mitunter ganz schön ans Herz greifen, bietet Nina Russi eine ganz, ganz große Regiearbeit."

News

Psycho thriller Elektra

Following her acclaimed interpretation of Janacek's The Makropulos Affair in 2022, celebrated by audience and critics alike, Nina Russi’s next staging at Würzburg’s Mainfranken Theater now celebrates its premiere!
This time she brings Strauss's action-packed one-acter Elektra to the stage, interpreted as a "psychodrama of a woman who wants to avenge the misdeeds of her ancestors and in the process makes herself guilty. Caught in the vicious circle of guilt and atonement, the question arises of a way out of this logic, out of this system."

Julia Katharina Berndt is once again responsible for the stage and costume design, Enrico Calesso is conducting.

Premiere: 8th October, 2023

Further performances:
11/15/22/31 October, 22 November and 1 December, 2023

Further information about the production:
www.mainfrankentheater.de/...