He has created productions at the New Riga Theatre, Dailes Theatre, Latvian National Theatre, Mikhail Chekhov Riga Russian Theatre, Valmiera Drama Theatre, United Intimacy and elsewhere, as well as in Germany. Since 2020, Viesturs Kairišs has served as Artistic Director of Dailes Theatre. Several of his productions have been presented at international theatre festivals and venues, including Wiener Festwochen in Vienna, the Hebbel Theatre in Berlin, the Avignon Festival, the Bonn Biennale and Deutsche Oper Berlin.
As a film director, he has made both feature films and documentaries. His latest feature film, Ulya, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2026. His films include January (2022), The City on the River (2020), The Chronicles of Melanie (2016), Pelican in the Desert (2014), The Invisible City (2014), among others.
At the Latvian National Opera, Kairišs has directed three parts of Richard Wagner’s monumental tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, as well as Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, Giacomo Puccini’s Le Villi. Gianni Schicchi, Arturs Maskats’s opera Valentina, Puccini’s Il trittico, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. He has also staged operas in Germany at Komische Oper Berlin, Oper Köln and in Darmstadt.
Viesturs Kairišs has received numerous awards, including the Spīdola Award for outstanding achievements in the arts. He has won the Spēlmaņu nakts Latvian Theatre Award for Director of the Year on several occasions, as well as the national film award Lielais Kristaps in various categories, the Latvian Grand Music Award for his opera productions, the Latvian public media annual award Kilograms kultūras and the newspaper Diena Culture Award. His films have received recognition at the international film festivals in Rome and Warsaw, as well as at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2018, he received the Eduards Smiļģis Award and the Kroders Award. In 2021, Kairišs was awarded the Order of the Three Stars.
Viesturs Kairišs believes that an artist has a responsibility to take an active part in public and political life and to express a civic position, with particular emphasis on threats to democracy and national independence, as well as issues concerning the status of the Latgalian language.
Photo by Artūrs Kondrāts