INTERVIEW WITH THEATER ARTISTIC DIRECTOR SEBASTIAN RITSCHEL:

Sebastian Ritschel, born in 1980, took over the directorship of Theater Regensburg in September 2022. The music and theater studies graduate was previously Opera Director and Head of Music Theater at the Landesbühnen Sachsen. Sebastian Ritschel has received several awards for his work. We had the pleasure of asking the new artistic director a few questions: (RegensburgNow.de) Welcome to Regensburg Mr. Ritschel! You have recently moved to Regensburg. Do you already have a favorite place in or around Regensburg? I have the pleasure of looking out onto Bismarckplatz every day, which has an almost Italian feel to it with its liveliness. We contribute to this with our balcony singing, among other things. I’m delighted that the people of Regensburg take up this offer so well. What have been the stages of your life so far? I was born in Düsseldorf and completed my studies in musicology and theater studies in Leipzig. After several years as a freelance assistant director in Dresden, Madrid and Salzburg, among other places, I was head dramaturge and in-house director at the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Theater Görlitz-Zittau for ten years. I then moved to the Landesbühnen Sachsen in Radebeul as opera director and head of the music theater department. Since the beginning of the 22/23 season, I have been the artistic director of Theater Regensburg. You have a very time-consuming job. What is exciting about your work? I deliberately opted for the diversity and complexity of a multi-disciplinary theater. Locating our five divisions at five venues, networking them with each other and surprising our audiences with a varied repertoire is an exciting and very responsible task.

Theater management
left: Artistic Director Sebastian Ritschel | right: Commercial Director Dr. Matthias Schloderer
© Jochen Quast

The motto for the new season is “Truths”. So there are several or why was this motto chosen? With our program, we invite the audience to search for their own personal truths, to question half-truths and to uncover untruths. The season’s motto runs through the entire program as a “common thread”: from the most famous liar in children’s literature – PINOCCHIO – to the Ministry of Truth in the 1984 opera or the premiere of the play ZUKUNFTSMUSIK about Regensburg truths to the exposing game show ECHT JETZT?! in the Junges Theater. You are not only the artistic director, but also the opera director at Theater Regensburg. What was the very first opera you heard? The very first opera I ever heard was Rossini’s IL BARBIERE DI SIVILGLIA at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf. Not as a spectator, however, but as a 14-year-old extra on stage, because I was allowed to play a young torero. As a spectator, I actually started with Richard Wagner’s tetralogy DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN and soaked up all four parts – 16 hours of music after all. Do you actually have a favorite composer? This changes from time to time. But if I had to name three, they would be Leoš Janáček, Richard Wagner and Stephen Sondheim. What are you currently working on or what is your next project? As artistic director, I am in the middle of preparations for the next two seasons. Apart from that, each of our 36 premieres and 27 concerts this year is the “next” project. As a director, I am currently preparing for my upcoming production of Lorin Maazel’s opera “1984”. And now the Regensburg question that no one is spared: Knackersemmel or Prinzess chocolates? To be honest: neither of them so far. I like to go to Wurstkuchl for a small snack and to “What a kiosk” on Neupfarrplatz for a coffee. Back to the theater. What should we definitely not miss this fall / winter? Of course our family play DER LÜGEN… WUNSCHPUNSCH at Christmas time in the Antoniushaus. Plus Bernstein’s operetta CANDIDE and the Verdi classic MACBETH in the Musiktheater, the puppet theater MONSTA and the participatory opera BABBEL in the Junges Theater and the comedy FRÄULEIN AGNES and much, much more…

CANDIDE
Carlos Moreno Pelizari, Michael Daub, Benedikt Eder, Kirsten Labonte, Eva Zalenga, Photo: TomNeumeier
© Tom Neumeier

Thank you very much for the interview!

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