About
Lighting designer Olaf Winter made his Royal Opera debut in 2009 on Tristan und Isolde, directed by Christof Loy, and has since returned to work on Die Frau ohne Schatten, directed by Claus Guth, Un ballo in maschera, directed by Katharina Thoma, and Il trovatore, directed by David Bösch. In the 2018/19 Season he designs lighting for La forza del destino, directed by Christof Loy.
Winter studied musicology, journalism and German philology while working as a lighting and stage technician at the Wolfgang Borchert Theatre in Münster. He completed his training as a lighting designer at the Studio and Forum of Stage Design in New York and went on to work as a lighting designer for opera and ballet in Frankfurt, becoming Technical Director of Frankfurt Opera in 2002. Since 2009 he has been Technical Director of Frankfurt Opera and Playhouse. He has also worked for opera companies including Paris Opéra, Berlin State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, La Scala, Milan, Liceu, Barcelona and Vienna State Opera and for the Salzburg and Aix-en-Provence festivals.
Among Winter’s many lighting credits are Norma, Peter Grimes, Die lustige Witwe, the Mozart-Da Ponte operas, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Les Troyens, Der Ring des Nibelugen, La bohème, Pelléas et Mélisande and Parsifal (Frankfurt Opera), Ariadne auf Naxos and La clemenza di Tito (Glyndebourne Festival), Die Frau ohne Schatten (La Scala, Milan), Lohengrin and Wozzeck (Paris Opéra) and Das Wunder der Heliane(Deutsche Oper Berlin).