Prologue

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

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L'Affaire Makropoulos (saison 23/24) - 15

The Makropulos Case

Who has never dreamed of eternal youth? In The Makropulos Case, the celebrated singer Emilia Marty is 337 years old yet appears 30 thanks to a life-extending elixir.As the effects of the potion begin to wane, the diva is desperate to obtain the formula that will allow her to retain her dazzling youth.Thus begins a race against time, the fatal outcome of which is death. At the crossroads between science fiction and philosophical debate, Czech composer Leoš Janáček's penultimate opera is an incredibly modern work.Created in 1926, the score is astonishing for its mastery of the sung word, its harsh rhythms and intense expressivity. Conjuring up Hollywood mythology, be it Marilyn Monroe, King Kong or Gloria Swanson, director Krzysztof Warlikowski delivers a profound reflection on time and immortality. With the Paris Opera Orchestra and ChorusUne Production Opéra national de Paris avec le soutien de la Fondation Orange, Mécène des retransmissions audiovisuelles de l’Opéra national de Paris et Le Cercle audiovisuel et numériqueExtraits vidéo : Images Marylin Monroe © Film images King Kong réalisé par Merian C. Cooper et Ernest B. Schoedsack © Warner Bros Entertainment - Droits réservés Sunset Boulevard/Boulevard du crépuscule réalisé par Billy Wilder © Paramount - Droits réservésRéalisatrice : Mathilde Jobbé-Duval © Opéra national de Paris - 2023 Visuel : © Bernd Uhlig / OnP

Emilia Marty: Famous diva Albert Gregor: Grandson of Ferdinand Gregor, supposed heir to Baron Prus Dr Kolenaty: Gregor’s lawyer Vitek: Clerk to the lawyer Koletany Krista: Daughter of Vitek Jaroslav Prus: Descendant of Baron Prus Janek: Son of Jaroslav Prus Hauk-Šendorf: A senile count and former lover of Eugenia Montez

Who has never dreamed of eternal youth? In The Makropulos Case, the celebrated singer Emilia Marty is 337 years old yet appears 30 thanks to a life-extending elixir. As the effects of the potion begin to wane, the diva is desperate to obtain the form

Leoš Janáček

Born July 3, 1854, Hukvaldy, Moravia, Leoš Janaček first studied music at the Brno monastery and then organ in Prague and at the Leipzig Conservatory. In 1874, he met in Prague Antonin Dvořak, who would greatly influence his compositions and for whom he developed a deep friendship. In 1881 he founded a college of organists at Brno, which then became a conservatory, then a permanent orchestra. He composed his first opera, Šarka, in 1887. Named secretary of the Folkloric Studies Department in Prague, he collected and revised many popular songs and composed works in the tradition of the genre. Most of his inspiration came from the Moravian folk culture, the dialects and customs of his native country and the sounds of nature. But he was also a remarkable playwright and theatre director. Other sources came from the Slavic culture: Dostoïevski, Gogol, Ostrovski and Tolstoï inspired him to write From the House of the Dead, the orchestral rhapsody Taras Bulba, the opera Katya Kabanova and the quartet Kreutzer Sonata. His entire work is characterised by a powerful dramatic charge: Jenůfa and Katia’s portraits are, for instance, marked by a great and subtle psychology. Though he never gave birth to an aesthetical school, he nonetheless remained a lifelong champion for a Czech culture connected to the realities of his time. His dedication to local musical life, only matched by his determination to compose exclusively in Czech with the passion of a linguist, slowed down his career, and he was long considered as a regional musician. During his lifetime, he enjoyed a late success, limited to a defined territory: Jenůfa finally made his mark when the composer was already 62 years old. His repertoire includes a ballet, nine operas (the most famous being Katia Kabanova, Jenůfa, Osud, Mr. Brouček’s Excursion to the Moon, The Cunning Little Vixen, LThe Makropulos Case, From the House of the Dead) - almost all of them were composed in Brno - choral works (masses, motets, cantatas), including The Glagolitic Mass to ancient Slavonic lyrics, instrumental music works (rhapsodies, symphonic poems, quartets, sonatas). He died in Ostrava on August 12, 1928.

Mattila.Karita.5.(c) Marica Rosengard NB

Pavel Černoch made his professional debut in his native city, Brno, followed by appearances in Prague, Riga, Cagliari, Athens, Graz and Vienna. He studied at the Janáček Academy in Brno and then in Italy. He makes regular appearances at the Teatro alla Scala Milan, Amsterdam Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, at the Salzburg and Glyndebourne Festivals, under conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Kirill Petrenko, Simon Rattle and Semyon Bychkov. His repertoire includes the roles of Max (Der Freischütz), Lenski (Eugene Onegin) and Laca (Jenůfa) at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Cavaradossi (Tosca) at La Monnaie in Brussels, the title-role in Don Carlo and Rodolfo (La Bohème) at the Staatsoper in Hamburg, Giasone (Médée) at the Salzburg Festival, Boris (Katia Kabanova) at the Royal Opera House, Don José (Carmen) at the Greek National Opera, Jenik (The bartered bride) at the Prague National Theatre, Lykov (The Tsar’s Bride) and Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin and Teatro alla Scala in Milan. More recently, he sang the roles of Florestan (Fidelio) and Apollo (Daphné) at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, Cavaradossi in Hamburg and Prague, Laca at the Theater an der Wien, the Prince (Rusalka) at the Dresden Semperoper, the Dutch national Opera and in Prague, Pinkerton and the title-role in Faust at the Hamburg Staatsoper. Pavel Černoch frequently appears as concert soloist and performed Beethoven’s 9° Symphony with Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Mahler’s Song of the Earth with Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, Rachmaninoff’s The Bells with Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and Verdi’s Requiem at the Bergen Festival. In the next seasons, he will make his stage debut at the Chicago Lyric Opera and New YorkMetropolitan Opera.



At the Paris Opera: The Bartered Bride, (Jenik), 2010; Rusalka (le Prince), 2015; Eugene Onegin (Lenski), 2017; Don Carlo (rôle-titre), 2017; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (Serguei), 2019; Prince Igor (Vladimir), 2019

Cernoch.Pavel (c) Lenka Hatasova

Member of the Troupe lyrique de l'Opéra national de ParisA graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts and Herald-Sun Aria finalist, Nicholas Jones has performed a variety of roles for Opera Australia, including the Remendado in Carmen, Marasquin in Two Weddings, One Bride and Schmidt in Werther. He has also sung Tamino and Count Almaviva in touring productions of The Magic Flute and The Barber of Seville. In 2016, he created the role of Fish Lamb in Cloudstreet presented by State Opera South Australia. He has sung the Male Chorus in Victorian Opera's The Rape of Lucretia, Britten's Canticles and Stefan Cassomenos' Art of Thought for the Melbourne Recital Centre and Haydn's Creation for the Sydney Philharmonic.He was also part of the original cast of Deborah Cheetham's opera Pecan Summer. More recently, he sang Michael Driscoll in Whiteley, as well as Tony in West Side Story for Opera Australia and Tom in Christina's World for State Opera South Australia. In 2022, he sang Tsarevich Gvidon (The Golden Cockerel) and Harry (Voss) in Adelaide, Handel's Messiah in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, Jaquino (Fidelio) with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and returned to Opera Australia as Count Almaviva.He recently won the Green Room Award for his portrayal of David in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg at Opera Australia, and was nominated for the Helpmann Award for the same role. In 2023, he appeared in Mozart's Mass in C minor with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and as Ralph Rackstraw in HMS Pinafore for State Opera South Australia's inaugural Gilbert &amp; Sullivan Festival. In 2024, he is Laertes in Brett Dean's Hamlet at Opera Australia. Nicholas Jones is the recipient of the Dame Heather Begg Memorial Award. He joins the Troupe lyrique de l'Opéra national de Paris from the 2023-2024 season.At the Opéra national de Paris: L'Affaire Makropoulos (Vitek), 2023; Turandot (Pong), 2023; Adriana Lecouvreur (Poisson), 2024; Don Quichotte (Juan), 2024

Jones.Nicholas (c) Patrick Togher Artists’ Management

Born in New York, Ilanah Lobel-Torres graduated from the New England Conservatory and obtained a vocal performance degree at the Mannes School of Music.Following her master in 2019, she joined the Paris Opera Academy, where she performed on the Bastille Opera and Palais Garnier stages and toured in Beirut, at La Grange au Lac in Évian and at the Dijon Opera. In September 2020, she was diagnosed with a primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma and underwent six cycles of chemotherapy. Six months after the end of her treatment, she came back to Paris for the 2021/22 season of the Paris Opera. She sang Ozia (La Giuditta) at La Grange au Lac with director Thibault Noally, and Costanza (L’isola disabitata) at Dijon Opera with Fayçal Karoui. With the Academy, she also appeared in concerts and as the sole soloist in chamber music concert series with the Paris Opera Orchestra. I the 2022/23 season, Ilanah Lobel-Torres returned as Ozia at the Chaise-Dieu Festival and the Festival Sinfonia en Périgord with Les Accents and Thibault Noally, made her debut at the Santa Fe Opera in the role of the First Nymph (Rusalka) under Lidiya Yankovskaya, and as an understudy for Proserpina (L'Orfeo) under Harry Bicket. She is joining the Paris Opera Company for the 2023/24 season.





At the Paris Opera: L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (the Shepherdess, the Bat), 2020; Manon (Javotte), 2022; Le Nozze di Figaro (a donna), 2022; Le Nozze di Figaro (Barbarina), 2022; Peter Grimes (Second Niece), 2023

Ilanah Lobel Torres © Barbara Torres

Born in Copenhagen, Johan Reuter studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Danish Opera Academy. Since 1996, he has been a soloist with the Copenhagen Opera, where he has performed a vast repertoire including the roles of Richard Nixon (Nixon in China), Marsk Stig (Drot og Marsk), Joseph Rocher (Dead Man Walking), the title roles in Boris Godunov and Gianni Schicchi, the Dutchman (The Flying Dutchman), Dr Schön / Jack the Ripper (Lulu), Michele (Il Tabarro), Scarpia (Tosca), Alfio (Cavalleria rusticana), Tonio (Pagliacci). He has sung Barak (La Femme sans ombre) at London's Royal Opera House, New York's Metropolira Opera, Berlin, Zurich and Amsterdam, the title role in Nabucco at Berlin's Deutsche Oper, Gilles de Rais (Jeanne d'Arc de Braunfels) at the Salzburg Festival, Jaroslav Prus (L'Affaire Makropoulos) at New York's Metropolitan Opera and the Salzburg Festival, Wotan (L'Or du Rhin) at Munich's Bayerische Staatsoper and the Bayreuth Festival, Wotan (Die Walküre) in Toronto and Berlin, Wozzeck at Berlin's Deutsche Oper, Hans Sachs (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) at Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts, the Dutchman in Madrid and Berlin, Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) at Theater an der Wien and Berlin's Deutsche Oper, the title role in Macbeth in Lisbon, Chiskov (From the House of the Dead) at London's Royal Opera House and Madrid's Teatro Real. He created the role of Theseus (Harrison Birtswistle's The Minotaur) at London's Royal Opera House, where he also performed Orest (Elektra), Jochanaan (Salome), the title roles in Wozzeck and Oedipus, Griaznoi (The Tsar's Bride), Kurwenal (Tristan and Isolde). Last season, he was Friedrich von Telramund (Lohengrin) in Munich, Amfortas (Parsifal) in Bergen and Barak in San Francisco. In the 2023-2024 season, he is Orest at the Baden-Baden Festival and at the Berlin Philharmonic.At the Opéra national de Paris: De la maison des morts (Chiskov), 2005; Wozzeck (title role), 2022; L'Affaire Makropoulos (Jaroslav Prus), 2023

Reuter.Johan 2 © Dario Acosta

Cyrille Dubois first sang in Caen’s Choir, obtained a degree in Science and studied at the Paris Conservatoire, before joining the Paris Opera’s opera workshop, the Atelier Lyrique in 2010. In 2015, Cyrille Dubois was nominated Best New Opera Artist at the Victoires de la Musique and Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2022.His wide repertoire ranges from Baroque (Hippolyte, in Hippolyte et Aricie) to contemporary music (L’Autre in Point d'orgue), Italian Bel Canto (Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville, Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola), Mozart (Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Tamino in The Magic Flute) and French Opera-comique.He can be heard in many leading European staged, such as Teatro alla Scala, Milan (Nathanael in The Hoffmann Tales), La Monnaie in Brussels (Azor in La Dispute), Staatsoper Wien (Ernesto in Don Pasquale), Zurich Opera (Fenton in Falstaff), Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and the Opéra Comique (title role in Fortunio).He has won many international competitions with Tristan Raës, and together they perform in St-Petersburg, Venice, London, Moscow, and have recorded works by Liszt, the sisters Boulangers, and the complete songs of Fauré.Cyrille Dubois is also a concert singer and teaches masterclasses regularly. In the 2023/24 season, he sings Tamino at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Idamante (Idomeneo) at Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse and Renaud (Armide) at Opéra Comique.His discography includes about forty recordings, including the title role in Pygmalion, Iopas in The Trojans, Acanthe in Acante et Cephise, Britten’s Canticles and Gervais’s Grands Motets.At the Paris Opera: The Tales of Hoffmann (Nathanaël), 2012; Alcina (Oronte), 2014; Ariadne auf Naxos (Brighella), 2015; King Arthur (a worker), 2015; Così fan tutte (Ferrando), 2017; Trompe-la-mort (Lucien de Rubempré), 2017; Les Huguenots (Tavannes, a monk), 2018; Les Troyens (Iopas), 2019; The Magic Flute (Tamino), 2021

Dubois.Cyrille © Philippe Delval 2022

In 2008, Hungarian bass-baritone Károly Szemerédy won first place at the Maestro Guerrero International Singing Competition in Madrid, and later reached the finals in the Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna. In that same year, in Québec, he won third place at the Operalia Plácido Domingo competition.Highlights of his career include Orest (Elektra) and Dr. Kolenaty (The Makropulos Affair) for Grand Théâtre de Genève, Bluebeard's Castle and Chichkov (From The House of the Dead) for Opera de Lyon, Machiavel (Egmont) at Theater an der Wien, Captain of the Royal Guard (The Bassarids) for the Salzburg Festival Nikitich (Boris Godunov) at Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Escamillo (Carmen) at Teatr Wielki, Lavitski (Boris Godunov), Don Basilio (The Barber of Seville), Orest and First Nazarene (Salomé) at Teatro Real in Madrid.A regular guest artist of the Hungarian State Opera, he has performed with the house since 2014 in roles including Jochanaan (Salomé), Don Fernando (Fidelio), Marcello (La Bohème), Klingsor (Parsifal), Gunther (Götterdämmerung), Leonardo (Blood Wedding), Escamillo (Carmen), Michele (Il Tabarro), Yeletsky (The Queen of Spade), Il Re d'Egitto (Aida) and Crown (Porgy and Bess).On the concert platform, he has performed Bluebeard’s Castle with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestra of the Municipal Theater of Bologna, and Orest at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. In 2015, he made his role debut as King Salomon in the rediscovery of K. Goldmark's The Queen of Sheba recorded for CPO classics, with later performances at Theater Freiburg and the Hungarian State Opera.In the 2022-23 season, he performs Bluebeard’s Castle at Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires and Opéra national de Lyon , and sings the roles of Orest at Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Klingsor and Thoas (Iphigénie en Tauride) at Hungarian State Opera House. He will revive Orest for the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich next season.

Paris Opera debut

Szemerédy.Károly (c) Pál Nánási

Born in Hertfordshire, England, of German-Austrian parentage, Peter Bronder studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London, as well as at the National Opera Studio, before taking his first engagements at Glyndebourne and Welsh National Opera. His career has taken him to The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Komische Oper Berlin, Frankfurt Opera, Opernhaus Zurich, La Monnaie, Teatro alla Scala, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Teatro Real Madrid, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Glyndebourne and The BBC Proms. Recent notable successes include Mime (Siegfried) at La Scala, Staatsoper Berlin, Flanders Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Teatro Massimo di Palermo, Cleveland Orchestra, and Bergen; Herod (Salome) at La Scala, Flanders Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, Teatro Regio Torino, Oper Frankfurt, Teatro Municipal São Paulo, Opera Hong Kong and a CD recording with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony; Loge (Das Rheingold) for Scottish Opera, Oper Stuttgart, and Ruhrtriennale Festival; Hauptmann (Wozzeck) Flanders Opera and Frankfurt; and the title role in Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg in Lisbon, Frankfurt, and Seville.He appears regularly at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden where recent roles have included Iaryzhkin in Barry Kosky’s production of The Nose, Monostatos (Die Zauberflöte), and Shabby Peasant (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk). He made his debut with the New York Philharmonic as Mime (Das Rheingold) with conductor Alan Gilbert. He has made numerous radio broadcasts and CD recordings for Decca, DGG, EMI, Philips, Teldec, Oehms and Chandos including the title roles in Wagner’s Rienzi and Pfitzner’s Palestrina with Frankfurt Opera. He also appears in filmed DVD productions of Salome, Boris Godunov, and Andrea Chénier











At the Paris Opera: Boris Godounov (Missail), 2018

Perter Bronder

Susanna Mälkki appears regularly with top orchestras throughout Europe and North America, both in symphonic and operatic repertoires. She conducted the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, where she wasChief Conductor from 2016 to 2023 and is now / Directrice musical émérite; Los Angeles Philharmonic, where she was Principal Guest Conductor from 2017 until 2023, Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, the Münchner Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Bayerischer Rundfunk and the Berliner Philharmoniker. She also made appearances at Teatro alla Scala Milan, Vienna Staatsoper, New York Metropolitan Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, where she conducted Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence, which she premiered in 2021 at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Future operatic titles include Pelléas et Mélisande, Fidelio, and Tristan und Isolde, among others. Recognised for her significant contribution to the art form, Susanna Mälkki was awarded in 2011 the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland, one of Finland’s highest honours. She was made a French Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2014 and then, in January 2016, a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London and a member of the Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien in Stockholm. In October 2016 she was named Musical America’s 2017 Conductor of the Year, and in November 2017 she was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize.



At the Paris Opera: Siddharta, 2010; The Makropulos Case, 2013; Trompe-la-mort, 2017; Rusalka, 2019; Yvonne, princesse de Bourgogne, 2020; Wozzeck, 2022

A graduate of the Taiwan Teacher Training College (Music Department), Ching-Lien Wu continued her studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon, where she was awarded the First Prize in Choral Conducting in 1987. She attended courses and workshops in orchestral conducting with JeanSébastien Béreau, Helmut Rilling, Michael Gielen and Pierre Boulez. 
In 1989, she was appointed Chorus Master at the Nantes Opera and in 1990, Assistant Chorus Master at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse. From 1991 to 2001, Ching-Lien Wu served as Chorus Master at the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg. The work she accomplished there was acclaimed by French and international critics. During this period, she was guest Chorus Master at the operas of Montpellier, Rouen and Shanghai as well as at Radio France for various operatic works and oratorios. In 1996, she was assistant to Norbert Balatsch at the Bayreuth Festival.
From 2001 to 2014, Ching-Lien Wu was Chorus Master of the Grand Théâtre de Genève. In September 2014, she was appointed Chorus Master of the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam. In 2016, the German magazine Opernwelt awarded the Dutch National Opera Chorus under the direction of Ching-Lien Wu the best Chorus of the Year label. She has also conducted numerous concerts with her own choir «Le Motet de Genève» with the Suisse Romande Orchestra, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestratus Genevensis. She was at the helm
of this vocal ensemble from 2002 to 2012.
Since 1996, she has been invited to give master classes in choral conducting at the CNSM in Lyon. In her native country, she has been responsible for musical studies for several opera productions, including The Barber of Seville, an opera she also staged in Taipei. Ching-Lien Wu was appointed Chorus Master of the Paris Opera in February 2021 and took up her post on 26 April of the same year.

Krzysztof Warlikowski belongs to the major reformers of dramatic language in Europe. Throughout his many productions, he has renewed the stage interpretation of Shakespeare’s works and the Greek tragedies. His productions include Angels in America, Madame de Sade, Krum Ectoplasm, Koniec / The End, (A)pollonia, Un tramway, African Tales, Kabaret Warszawski, On s’en va, Phèdre(s) and Les Français. Last year, he staged at the National Theatre La Colline L’Odyssée, Une histoire pour Hollywood, which won the Best Foreign Show 2022 award. Particularly dedicated to opera, he has managed to transpose his working methods into the genre, creating a dialogue between the operatic repertoire and our time. He has directed, among other performances, The Bassarids and Elektra at the Salzburg Festival, Eugene Onegin, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Les Stigmatisés, Salomé, Tristan und Isolde and more recently Dido & Aeneas … Erwartung at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Médée, Macbeth, Lulu, Don Giovanni and The Tales of Hoffmann at La Monnaie in Brussels, Le Triomphe du temps et de la désillusion at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Pelléas et Mélisande at the Ruhrtriennale, Wozzeck in Amsterdam, From the House of the Dead at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, The Makropulos Affair, Poppea e Nerone and Alceste at the Teatro Real in Madrid, The Rake’s Progress at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin... This season, he is reviving From the House of the Dead at the Rome Opera and will stage a new production of Macbeth for the Salzburg Festival. Krzysztof Warlikowski is also the artistic director of Warsaw’s Nowy Teatr, an interdisciplinary cultural centre. In 2021, he received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale.At the Paris Opera: Iphigénie en Tauride, 2006, 2008, 2016, 2021 ; The Makropulos Affair, 2007, 2009, 2013 ; Parsifal, 2008 ; King Roger, 2009 ; Le Château de Barbe-Bleue / La Voix humaine, 2015, 2018 ; Don Carlos, 2017 ; Don Carlo, 2019 ; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, 2019 ; A Quiet Place, 2022

Set designer, creator of the sets and costumes for all of Krzysztof Warlikowski's productions, Małgorzata Szczęśniak has co-created Warlikowski's poetic language in theatre and opera. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków in 1972, and then studied Psychology at the Jagiellonian University, from 1972 to 1976. At the same time, she has run art classes for hyperactive children and participated in an art therapy project for schizophrenia patients. In 1981, while writing her doctorate thesis on the psychology of creativity, she started studying Set Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and graduated in 1984. She then decided to dedicate herself to theatre and moved to Paris with Krzysztof. Together, they staged their first production in 1992. Małgorzata Szczęśniak has also collaborated with many Museums: the Exhibition of Young Stage Designers in Katowice in 1994, the Prague Quadrennial in 1990 and in 2007, "Reality of transformation - transformation of reality” at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw. In the spring 2008, she held a solo set design exhibition in Brussels: “Appearing and Vanishing without a Trace”. She created the stage design for the exhibition "Opera World" at the Centre Pompidou Metz in 2019 and for the exhibition "Around Us a See of Fire. The Fate of Jewish Civilians During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising" for the Polin Museum in Warsaw. Małgorzata Szczęśniak is the artistic leader of the architectural project of Nowy Teatr, an interdisciplinary cultural centre in Warsaw. She was awarded Best Set Designer of the Year at the 2021 Opera Awards.

At the Paris Opera: Iphigénie en Tauride, 2006 ; The Makropulos Affair, 2007 ; Parsifal, 2008 ; King Roger, 2009 ; Le Château de Barbe-Bleue / La Voix humaine, 2015 ; Don Carlos, 2017 ; Don Carlo, 2019 ; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, 2019 ; A Quiet Place, 2022 ; Hamlet, 2023.

Felice Ross has designed the lighting for many theatre, opera and ballet productions in Europe, Korea, Israel, Great-Britain, South Africa, Japan and the United-States. Amongst her designs are the lighting for the operas of Tel Aviv (The Barber of Seville, Medium), Warsaw (The Queen of Spades, Don Carlo, Ubu Roi, Wozzeck, The Flying Dutchman), Washington (Andrea Chénier), the Munich Bayerische Staatsoper (Eugene Onegin, Die Frau ohne Shatten, Tristan und Isolde), Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia (Eugene Onegin), Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin (The Rake’s Progress, Sleepless), La Monnaie in Brussels (Médée, Macbeth, Lulu, Don Giovanni), Teatro Real Madrid (Poppea e Nerone), the Aix-en-Provence Festival (Le Triomphe du temps et de la désillusion, L’Ange ardent), Dutch National Opera (Wozzeck), Grand Théâtre de Genève and Vlaamse Opera (The Makropulos Affair), Salzburg Festival (The Bassarids, Elektra and Aida), Ruhrtriennale (Das Floß der Medusa, Pelléas et Mélisande, Evolution set to a music by Ligeti), Opéra national du Rhin and Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo (Le Pavillon d’or) and Royal Opera House Covent Garden (From the House of the Dead). Felice Ross has been working with Krzysztof Warlikowski for his theatre and opera productions since 1998. In 2018, she was honoured by Sir Paul McCartney with the title of Companion at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. This season, she is designing the lighting for Tannhäuser at Staatsoper Hamburg, Lohengrin and Didon et Énée at Bayerische Staatsoper Munich.

At the Paris Opera: Iphigénie en Tauride (2006, 2008, 2016, 2021) ; L’Affaire Makropoulos (2007, 2009, 2013) ; Parsifal (2008) ; Le Roi Roger (2009) ; Le Château de Barbe-Bleue / La Voix humaine (2015, 2018) ; Don Carlos (2017) ; Don Carlo (2019) ; Lady Macbeth de Mzensk (2019) ; A Quiet Place (2022).

After his studies at the Hanns Eisler Berlin Academy, Miron Hakenbeck worked as a dramaturge with Krzysztof Warlikowski on many of his operatic productions at the Wielki Theatre, in Warsaw (Wozzeck), at La Monnaie in Brussels (Médée) and the Ruhrtriennale (Pelléas et Mélisande). From 2008 to 2018, he was the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich dramaturge, where he worked with Krzysztof Warlikowski (Eugene Onegin, Die Frau ohne Schatten, The Stigmatized, Salomé, Tristan und Isolde) and Andreas Kriegenburg, Arpad Schilling, Stephan Kimmig and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. With the dramaturgy team and artists including Sven Holm, Romeo Castellucci, Ludger Engels, Lucia Ronchetti, Jan Duszynski and Nikolaus Brass, he also developed projects in theatrical spaces outside of the leading stages and for the urban space. Since the 2018/19 season, Miron Hakenbeck has been the Stuttgart Staatsoper resident dramaturge, shaping his own artistic version of the position with director Viktor Schoner. There, he is working with Arpad Schilling, Stephan Kimmig, Barbara Frey, Schorsch Kamerun, Anika Rutkofsky and the HAUEN UND STECHEN collective. With composer Sergej Newski, the Titus Engel orchestra conductor, and director Paul-Georg Dittrich, he created BORIS, a fusion of Moussorgski’s Boris Godunov with Newsky’s new composition Secondhand-Zeit, based on texts by Swetlana Alexievich from her book The End of the Red Man. More recently, he started a collaboration with director Ewelina Marciniak for the productions of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in Bern.

At the Paris Opera: Iphigénie en Tauride, 2006; The Makropulos Case, 2007; Parsifal, 2008; King Roger, 2009; A Quiet Place, 2022

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