Achim Freyer (; born 30 March 1934) is a German stage director, set designer and painter. A protégé of

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

, Freyer has become one of the world's leading opera directors, working throughout Europe and, since 2002, in the United States, principally with the

Los Angeles Opera The Los Angeles Opera, originally called the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, is an American opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth-largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler P ...

. Since 1992, Freyer has developed a number of productions featuring his own troupe of performers, known as the Freyer Ensemble. Freyer staged a controversial production of Wagner's

Ring Cycle (''The Ring of the Nibelung''), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from Germanic heroic legend, namely Norse legendary sagas and the . The compos ...

in Los Angeles in 2010, praised by many critics but criticised by some of its own stars.

Awards

* 1987: Kainz-Medaille of Vienna * 1990:

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (, or , BVO) is the highest state decoration, federal decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It may be awarded for any field of endeavor. It was created by the first List of president ...

* 2000: * 2005: * 2007: * 2015: Nestroy Theatre Prize for his life's work''Nestroy-Preis 2015: Die Nominierungen''
(press release, 30 September 2015, retrieved 30 September 2015 * 2016: Der Faust in the category ''Bühne/Kostüm'' (stage/costume) for ''Esame di mezzanotte'', Nationaltheater Mannheim * 2022: Der Faust, lifetime achievement

References

External links

*
Achim Freyer
freyer-ensemble.de *
Achim-Freyer-Archiv
Archive of the

Academy of Arts, Berlin The Academy of Arts () is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany. The academy's predecessor organization was founded in 1696 by Elector F ...

Vita
Achim Freyer Foundation * Dorothea Marcus

(interview, in German, in ''Kulturfragen. Debatten und Dokumente'')

Deutschlandfunk Deutschlandfunk (DLF, ''Broadcast Germany'') is a public-broadcasting radio station in Germany, concentrating on news and current affairs. It is one of the four national radio channels produced by Deutschlandradio. History Broadcasting in t ...

19 January 2020 {{DEFAULTSORT:Freyer, Achim 20th-century German designers 21st-century German designers 1934 births Living people Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin German male writers