VERA NEMIROVA was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and moved to Germany in 1982. She studied Opera Directing at Berlin's Academy of Music "Hanns Eisler". Among her teachers were legendary German director Ruth Berghaus and Peter Konwitschny who both had a strong impact on the way she perceived opera. Vera Nemirova became Konwitschny's master student. She graduated in 1996 with her staging of Richard Strauss's nearly forgotten, uncompleted last opera Des Esels Schatten (The Donkey's Shadow) at Berlin's Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

 

In 2001, she directed John Lunn's opera The Maids in Dresden. In 2002, she won critical acclaim for her production of Olga Neuwirth's opera Bählamms Fest in Hamburg and created a stir with her bold, daring staging of Emmerich Kalman's operetta Die Csárdásfürstin in Vienna. Subsequently, she directed Bizet's Carmen in Freiburg, Verdi's Macbeth in Bonn, La forza del destino in Oldenburg, Rigoletto in Luzern, Beethoven's Fidelio in Graz, Die Zauberflöte in Eisenach, Eugene Onegin in Mageburg, and Puccini's La fanciulla del West at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Her interpretation of Carl Maria von Weber's rarely performed Euryanthe this February at the Dresden Semperoper prompted critics to call it "the best production seen in Dresden in years".

 

Vera Nemirova's next project after the Figaro in Riga was Verdi's Otello at the Semperoper in October. She was honoured with one of Germany's most prestigious Performing Arts Awards.