Born in 1965 in Riga, Latvia, Alvis Hermanis was recently named among the ten most influential European theatre personalities of the last ten years by DU Magazine, Swiss periodical for arts and culture. Mr. Hermanis currently works with major European theatre companies, including Burgtheater Vienna, Schaubuehne Berlin, Munchner Kammerspiele and Schauspielhaus Zurich; and in opera houses including La Scala Milano, State Opera Berlin, and La Monnaie Brussels.
He has staged operas at the Salzburg Festspiele since 2012, and continued to do in the 2016 season. His most recent staging there was of Trovatore, featuring Placido Domingo and Anna Netrebko in 2014. His most recent opera premieres were La Damnation de Faust with Opera de Paris, featuring Jonas Kaufman in December 2015 and I due Foscari with La Scala Milano, featuring Placido Domingo in February 2016. In 2018, he directed a new staging of Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Wagner Festival. Mr. Hermanis’s theatre productions have been presented at major theatre festivals ranging from Avignon to Edinburgh, and have toured to more than 40 countries. His many accolades include the Europe Prize New Theatre Realities, the Stanislavsky Award, two Golden Mask Awards (Moscow), Max Reinhardt Pen (Salzburg Festspiele), Nestroy Preis (Austria), and the Konrad Wolf Award (Germany). He has been artistic director of The New Riga Theatre since 1997.
Constantin Chiriac:
"Actor, director, playwright, scenographer, theatre director, ranked among the ten most influential figures in European theatre of the past ten years, Alvis Hermanis receives a star on the Sibiu Walk of Fame for the exceptional quality and uniqueness of his creations and projects in the fields of theatre and opera."
