Carmen

Born in Jerusalem, Ran Arthur Braun is one of the world's most sought-after stunt coordinators and action designers. He has worked on more than 300 live productions so far with most leading opera houses and festivals.

Specialising in large-scale events lead him to collaborate world-wide with major production companies, including venues in Asia and the Middle East. He also enjoys a long-standing collaboration with the Bregenz Festival, where he has worked for more than 19 seasons.

Ran Arthur Braun has also made a name for himself as a director and set designer: he won the 2014 Music and Theatre Prize for Best Set Design and he was voted 2015 Director of the Year for his production of L’enfant et les sortilèges, both in Poland. He has been a member of Dmitri Tcherniakov's production team since 2017.

He teaches stage fighting at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Centre de Perfeccionament Plácido Domingo in Valencia, Bolshoi in Moscow and the Opera Studio in Amsterdam.

Ran also manages Action Actors for film, television and stage projects, with recent work provided for Lucas Films, Disney, Amazon Prime and Balich Wonder Studio.

Bruno Poet works in the fields of opera, theatre, dance and live music. He has designed stages for many of the world's leading opera houses, with Rusalka (Sydney Opera House) winning the Australian Green Room Award.

He has won three “Knight of Illumination Awards”: 2019 the USA Awards for Festival/One-off Lighting for Björk's Cornucopia (with Richard White), one for the 2013 Sigur Rós World Tour and one for Frankenstein at the National Theatre London, for which he also won the Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design. He was recently nominated for an Olivier Award for Uncle Vanya in London's West End and for a Drama Desk Award for Tina - the Musical on Broadway.

Walter Zeh was born in Vienna where he studied at the Vienna Conservatory and at Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst. In 1970, he became a member of the Vienna State Opera Chorus where he stayed for 32 years, his tasks also including a notable number of solo roles at Austria's most famous opera house. In addition, he gained guest contracts as a soloist at major opera houses such as Bavarian State Opera Munich, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro alla Scala, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Opéra Bastille and Palais Garnier in Paris, Salzburger Festspiele as well as the Salzburg Easter Festival and Japan. He was busy as a concert and Lieder singer in Austria and abroad. For CD productions, he collaborated with some of today's most important conductors.

Since long, Walter Zeh is active as voice teacher and language coach for opera productions at Opéra Bastille in Paris or the Salzburg festivals. As a free-lance chorus master he has worked since 2002 for productions at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Ruhr-Triennale, Salzburger Festspiele, Musikfest Bremen, Lucerne Festival, Teatro Real in Madrid, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Festspielhaus St. Pölten and Musikverein in Vienna. The Chinese National Choir invited him for preparing and conducting concert programs. In 2006, Walter Zeh founded the Philharmonia Chorus in Vienna.

Volker Werner trained as a sound engineer at Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna, at University of Miami, Florida and Banff Centre in Canada. With his colleagues Philipp Treiber and David Menke, he founded his own company, PDV Records, specializing in sound systems for concerts, audio and video production as well as film music. PDV have worked for Wiener Festwochen or Disney in Concert, they produced musical TV events such as the national Whitsunday concert from Stift Melk und and have worked in the music team for cinema productions such as Mission Impossible or Alien: Covenant.

They enjoy their successful collaboration with renowned classical music artists such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Diana Damrau, Edita Gruberová and Michael Schade as well as world famous orchestras: the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra or the New York Philharmonic. Volker Werner is teaching at Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna and is deeply involved in the development of 3D audio formats, collaborating with Fraunhofer Institute. He was part of the development team for “Amadeus“ Active Acoustics Systems, debuting with the London Symphony Orchestra and inaugurating the Andermatt Concert Hall with the Berlin Philharmonic. He is responsible for the 3D sound system at the new James Bond Museum ”007 Elements" on top of the Gaislachkogl. Since 2016, Volker Werner and “Oper im Steinbruch“ enjoy their successful partnership.

Colombian American soprano Vanessa Vasquez, winner of the 2017 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, recently completed a four-year residency at the prestigious Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, where she has been heard as Mimì in La bohème, Gilda in Rigoletto, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and Violetta in La traviata.

Ms. Vasquez’s recent engagements include return engagements with The Santa Fe Opera to sing the Countess in a new production of Le Nozze di Figaro, and Washington National Opera and Arizona Opera to sing her first performances of Micaëla in Carmen.

Ms. Vasquez made her debut with the Canadian Opera Company in the role of Liù in Turandot, and with Washington National Opera singing her first performances of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. Previously, she debuted with Arizona Opera as Violetta in La traviata, and with The Santa Fe Opera and Opera Philadelphia, both as Mimi in La bohème.

She made her professional opera debut in summer 2017 as Liù in Turandot with Des Moines Metro Opera. With Oberlin in Italy, she performed Countess Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro. On the concert stage, she debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra in J.S. Bach’s cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich and with the New York Choral Society in Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass. She made her debut with the New York Philharmonic as soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, and she was soprano soloist in Honneger’s King David and Poulenc’s Gloria with Voices of Ascension. She was a featured soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin in the Academy of Music 160th Anniversary Concert and Ball.

Ms. Vasquez is the recipient of a 2017 Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, First Prize in the 2017 Gerda Lissner Foundation Competition, First Prize in the 2016 Licia Albanese Competition, First Prize in the 2016 Giulio Gari Competition, First Prize in the 2016 Loren L. Zachary Vocal Competition, and First Prize and Audience Award in the Phoenix Opera Southwest Vocal Competition, among others.

Vanessa Vasquez was graduated from The Catholic University of America with a Bachelor of Music degree. She went on to complete a Master of Music degree at UCLA, where she performed Susanna in Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna, and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. Ms. Vasquez is a native of Scottsdale, Arizona.

Ivan Zinoviev was born in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia. At the age of 7 he appeared publicly at singing competitions and at the age of 8 he regularly had solo performances in the children's choir of the Krasnoyarsk State Opera Theater.

In 2009 he completed his vocal studies at the Gnesins State Music Academy in Moscow with distinction. Since 2010, the young singer has been doing his master's degree at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna with Mag. Yuli Khomenko. In addition to his studies, he has numerous solo appearances in various opera productions, including several festivals in Austria, but also at 1CCTV in Beijing, China, in Tel Aviv, Israel and in Cape Town, South Africa.

He is currently a member of the Jungen Ensemble des Theater an der Wien (JET), where he has acted in R. Strauss' Salome, in Leoncavallo's Zazà and in Lortzing's Der Waffenschmied and as Grand Inquisiteur in Verdi's Don Carlo, Olivier in Picker's Thérèse Raquin and Don Basilio could be seen in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. His other roles include Osmin, Sarastro, Leporello, Figaro (all Mozart), and Ferrando in Verdi's Il trovatore.

Ivan is an active participant in workshops such as with Professor Dmitriy Vdovin in the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow or with Placido Domingo. Ivan is currently perfecting his studies with Maestro Kammersänger Professor Jewgenij Nesterenko in Vienna.

Before studying singing with the Karól Lipiński Music Academy in Wrocław, young Polish bass-baritone Mikołaj Bońkowski studied geology and engineering and worked as a civil engineer for some years. He finished his musical studies with Prof. Edward Randall at Dresden's „Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber“ with Erasmus programme in 2021. He enjoyed numerous master classes with Sylvain Cambreling, Eytan Pessen, Matthias Rexroth, Wolfgang Schöne a.o.

Mikołaj has performed Bartolo in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and the title role in Don Giovanni for National Music Forum / Filharmonia Wrocław and Ars Augusta Görlitz, along with Charly in Szymanowski's Loteria na mężów, the title role in Marschalk's Das Wichtelchen or Infernus in Augustyn's Descendus Christi ad Infernum as well as the Stranger in the multimedia show Synagoga – 22 Edith Stein in Św. Michała Archaniola Cathedral, the largest and most impressive church in Wrocław.

The International Festival Stanisław Moniuszko invite him regularly since 2017 to perform important roles in Moniuskzo's operettas: Krzetyna in Ideał, Loro in Carmagnole Michał in The new Don Quichote.

On the concert stage he enjoys singing Lieder of German composers such as Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Wolf and Loewe along with Dvořáks Biblical Songs, Spanish Songs by Shostakovich and works of other Polish and Russian composers: Moniuszko, Penderecki, Szymanowski, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninov a.o.

He guests frequently with the Wrocław Song of the Goat Theatre performing in numerous of their shows on large international stages.

Philharmonia Chor Wien were founded in 2002 following an initiative of former Salzburg festival general manager, Gérard Mortier. The chorus have worked with world-famous conductors: Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Christian Thielemann, Riccardo Muti a.o.

In summer 2013, the Philharmonia Chorus' singers were hired by the Salzburg festival to sing in Verdi's Falstaff under Zubin Mehta and Giovanna d'Arco under Paolo Carignani. An especially remarkable event war the first staged production of Wagner's Parsifal in China, under the baton of Gustav Kuhn for the Beijing Music Festival 2013. With great success, the Philharmonia Chorus appeared in Baden-Baden for the Easter Festival in 2014 with Puccini's Manon Lescaut and in 2015 with Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. Furthermore, the Baden-Baden audience saw the chorus with Gounod's Faust under Thomas Hengelbrock and Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito under Stefan Soltesz with the Munich Philharmonic. They sang Don Giovanni at the Salzburg festival under Christoph Eschenbach und Donizetti's La Favorite under Roberto Abbado, followed in 2016 by Tristan und Isolde, Tosca in 2017 and again Faust, this time with the Vienna Philharmonic and Alejo Perez conducting. They joined Plácido Domingo in a concert performance of Massenet's Thais. After Tosca, L'elisir d'amore, Rigoletto and Die Zauberflöte, this is Philharmonia Chorus' fifth summer with “Oper im Steinbruch“.