Luc Bondy Librettist

Luc Bondy was born in Zurich and directed his first productions in 1971. From 1974 to 1976, he worked at the Städtische Bühne in Frankfurt, and directed numerous productions for the Schaubühne in Berlin. From 1985 to 1987 he became that theatre’s co-director. He has a long catalogue of productions to his name including Schnitzler’s Terre étrangère (Nanterre), Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (Nanterre, Avignon, Berlin), Botho Strauss’s Time and the Room (Berlin), Ibsen’s John Gabriel Borkman and Waiting for Godot (Lausanne and Vienna), Phèdre (Lausanne, Paris and Vienna), The Seagull (Vienna), Yasmina Reza’s Drei Mal Leben, Schnitzler’s Anatol (Vienna), Martin Crimp’s Auf dem Land (Zurich and Berlin), Botho Strauss’s Unerwartete Rückkehr (Berlin), Yasmina Reza’s Une pièce espagnole (Paris), Martin Crimp’s Cruel and Tender (London), Botho Strauss’s Viol (Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe), Jon Fosse’s Schlaf (Wiener Festwochen), and Marivaux’s La Seconde Surprise de l’amour (Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers). He also directed numerous operas including Wozzeck in Hamburg, Così fan tutte in Brussels, Salomé in Salzburg, Florence, London and Paris, Don Carlos in Paris (Théâtre du Châtelet), Macbeth in Edinburgh and Vienna, The Winter’s Tale in Brussels, Lyon and Paris, The Turn of the Screw at the Aix Festival, Hercules at the Aix Festival and the Paris Opera, the world premiere production of Philippe Boesmans’ Julie at La Monnaie in Brussels and the Aix Festival, and Idomeneo at the Paris Opera. In 2003, he was appointed director of the Wiener Festwochen and in 2012, he took over the directorship of the Odéon Theatre in Paris which he ran until his sudden death on October 28, 2015. He also published a book, Mes dibbouks, with Editions Christian Bourgois.