STEFAN HERHEIM (Norway) is one of Europe’s leading opera stage directors. Das Rheingold at the LNO was one of his first Wagner’s productions. In the international critics' survey of the magazine Opernwelt he was named The Director of the Year three times – for the production of Don Giovanni (2007) at the Aalto Theatre in Essen, for Parsifal (2008) at the Bayreuth Festival and for Der Rosenkavalier at Staatsoper Stuttgart. Recently Stefan Herheim has also worked at Staatsoper Berlin, Komische Oper Berlin, Semperoper in Dresden, Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam etc. In 2013 he will stage Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Salzburg Festival (a coproduction with L'Opéra Bastille Paris).