Tatjana Gürbaca, Direction

Portrait von Tatjana Gürbaca

Tatjana Gürbaca

Tatjana Gürbaca, born in Berlin, is living in her home town. She studied opera direction at Berlin’s Hochschule für Musik „Hanns Eisler“. Her studies of music, drama and dance were extended by master courses especially with​ Ruth Berghaus. She joined the Graz Opera as a directorial assistant 1998-2001.

Competing for the Ring Award Graz, she was amongst the prized winners. Her directorial debut was Turandot at the Graz Opera. She has worked as a free lancing artist ever since. Her stylistic variety include all epochs of opera, from Purcell, Handel, Hasse, Kraus and Haydn to Hartmann, Dallapiccola, Ligeti, Reimann and Sciarrino. 

Mozarts Così fan tutte, inaugurating the Lucerne season in 2004, set one of the early highlights of her career, matched by an outright contemporary Don Giovanni in Bremen in 2019. Being trained both as a theatre maker and as a musician, Tatjana Gürbaca easily transposes historical settings and conflicts into contemporaneity. 

Tatjana Gürbaca has worked all over Europe, reaching far out to Bogotá and Novosibirsk, but Germany remained central to for her artistic work. Two highlights led beyond its borders. With Claudio Abbado as her partner, she staged a semi-scenic version of Fidelio at the Lucerne Festival in 2010, and Antwerp’s Vlaamse Opera was the house to present Parsifal in 2013. For this production Tatjana Gürbaca won international recognition as Director of the Year

Exemplified with Parsifal, Wagner’s musical dramas are Tatjana Gürbaca’s major challenges. She directed Der Ring des Nibelungen by condensing the four titles into a trilogy at the Theater an der Wien in 2017. It is the „second generation“, namely Hagen, Siegfried and Brünnhilde, tob e placed into the center of the cycle.

Having served the State Theatre Mainz as opera director for some seasons, Tatjana Gürbaca concentrated her work on some favored houses. In Zurich she has staged Rigoletto, Aida, Die Zauberflöte, La finta giardiniera, and, highly acclaimed, Werther. Tatjana Gürbaca will open the next season with Boito’s Mefistofele in Amsterdam.


Parsifal Vlaamse Opera

Werther Opernhaus Zürich

Tatjana Gürbaca’s Calendar

December 2023

12.12.2023 / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Così fan tutte / Národni Divadlo, Nationaltheater, Prag

15.12.2023 / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Così fan tutte / Národni Divadlo, Nationaltheater, Prag

January 2024

19.01.2024 / Jules Massenet: Werther / Opernhaus Zürich

23.01.2024 / Jules Massenet: Werther / Opernhaus Zürich

27.01.2024 / Giuseppe Verdi: La traviata / Nationale Opera, Amsterdam

27.01.2024 / Jules Massenet: Werther / Opernhaus Zürich

27.01.2024 / Louise Bertin: Fausto / Aalto-Musiktheater Essen

31.01.2024 / Giuseppe Verdi: La traviata / Nationale Opera, Amsterdam

February 2024

03.02.2024 / Giuseppe Verdi: La traviata / Nationale Opera, Amsterdam

04.02.2024 / Jules Massenet: Werther / Opernhaus Zürich

04.02.2024 / Louise Bertin: Fausto / Aalto-Musiktheater Essen

06.02.2024 / Giuseppe Verdi: La traviata / Nationale Opera, Amsterdam

08.02.2024 / Louise Bertin: Fausto / Aalto-Musiktheater Essen

09.02.2024 / Giuseppe Verdi: La traviata / Nationale Opera, Amsterdam

12.02.2024 / Giuseppe Verdi: La traviata / Nationale Opera, Amsterdam

14.02.2024 / Giacomo Puccini: Il Trittico / Wiener Staatsoper

15.02.2024 / Giuseppe Verdi: La traviata / Nationale Opera, Amsterdam

17.02.2024 / Giacomo Puccini: Il Trittico / Wiener Staatsoper

18.02.2024 / Giuseppe Verdi: La traviata / Nationale Opera, Amsterdam

20.02.2024 / Giacomo Puccini: Il Trittico / Wiener Staatsoper

23.02.2024 / Louise Bertin: Fausto / Aalto-Musiktheater Essen

24.02.2024 / Giacomo Puccini: Il Trittico / Wiener Staatsoper

March 2024

09.03.2024 / Louise Bertin: Fausto / Aalto-Musiktheater Essen

15.03.2024 / Giacomo Puccini: La fanciulla del West / Opéra de Lyon

20.03.2024 / Giacomo Puccini: La fanciulla del West / Opéra de Lyon

23.03.2024 / Giacomo Puccini: La fanciulla del West / Opéra de Lyon

26.03.2024 / Giacomo Puccini: La fanciulla del West / Opéra de Lyon

27.03.2024 / Louise Bertin: Fausto / Aalto-Musiktheater Essen

28.03.2024 / Giacomo Puccini: La fanciulla del West / Opéra de Lyon

31.03.2024 / Giacomo Puccini: La fanciulla del West / Opéra de Lyon

April 2024

02.04.2024 / Giacomo Puccini: La fanciulla del West / Opéra de Lyon

06.04.2024 / Louise Bertin: Fausto / Aalto-Musiktheater Essen

14.04.2024 / Leoš Janáček: Jenufa / Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Duisburg

20.04.2024 / Leoš Janáček: Jenufa / Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Duisburg

24.04.2024 / Louise Bertin: Fausto / Aalto-Musiktheater Essen

26.04.2024 / Leoš Janáček: Jenufa / Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Duisburg

May 2024

03.05.2024 / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Così fan tutte / Národni Divadlo, Nationaltheater, Prag

09.05.2024 / Leoš Janáček: Jenufa / Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Duisburg

11.05.2024 / Louise Bertin: Fausto / Aalto-Musiktheater Essen

19.05.2024 / Leoš Janáček: Jenufa / Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Duisburg

June 2024

16.06.2024 / Fromental Halévy: La Juive / Oper Frankfurt

20.06.2024 / Fromental Halévy: La Juive / Oper Frankfurt

23.06.2024 / Fromental Halévy: La Juive / Oper Frankfurt

28.06.2024 / Fromental Halévy: La Juive / Oper Frankfurt

July 2024

06.07.2024 / Fromental Halévy: La Juive / Oper Frankfurt

11.07.2024 / Fromental Halévy: La Juive / Oper Frankfurt

14.07.2024 / Fromental Halévy: La Juive / Oper Frankfurt

September 2024

11.09.2024 / Leoš Janáček: Jenufa / Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Duisburg

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Don Giovanni

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Der Freischütz