26 Artist

Biography

Born in Miranda de Ebro (Burgos), Calixto Bieito has been director of Barcelona's Teatre Romea, the Festival International des Arts de Castilla y Léon and Barcelona International Teatre (BIT). From 2013 to 2015, he was artist-in-residence at the Théâtre de Bâle. Since 2017, he has been artistic director of Bilbao's Teatro Arriaga. Since the early 2000s, he has devoted himself to directing opera, while continuing to work for the theater.

Carmen at the Peralada Festival, Shakespeare's Macbeth at the Salzburg Festival, Hamlet at the Edinburgh Festival, Don Giovanni in Hanover and The Abduction from the Seraglio at Berlin's Komische Oper have established his reputation as one of the most exciting directors of his generation.

Previous productions include Zimmermann's Les Soldats in Zurich, Berlin, and Madrid, Hèctor Parra's Wilde in Schwetzingen, Tannhäuser at the Flanders and Venice Operas, The Fairy Queen in Stuttgart, La Juive and Fidelio at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, La Forza del destino at English National Opera, Xenakis' Oresteia in Basel, Les Troyens in Nuremberg, Moses und Aaron and Le Grand Macabre in Dresden, Elias at Theater an der Wien, Hèctor Parra's Les Bienveillantes at the Flanders Opera, José María Usandizaga's Mendi Mendiyan at Teatro Arriaga.

In recent seasons, he has directed Carmen and Tristan und Isolde, Lohengrin and Mahler's Von der Liebe Tod at the Vienna Staatsoper, St John's Passion at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Rudi Stephan's Die ersten Menschen in Amsterdam, La Guerre et la Paix in Geneva, Erwin Schulhoff's Kátia Kabanová and Flammen in Prague, Eliogabalo at the Zurich Opera and Giulio Cesare in Egitto in Amsterdam, Mahomet II in Naples, Orgia by Hèctor Parra in Barcelona, Aida at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin and Der Silbersee by Kurt Weill in Mannheim.

This season, he will be directing Carmina Burana in Hamburg, La Khovantchina in Geneva, Il prigioniero / Suor Angelica in Rome and Jenůfa in Prague.

At the Paris Opera: Lear, 2016; Carmen, 2017; Simon Boccanegra, 2018; The Exterminating Angel, 2024