Rifail Ajdarpasic

Born in Stuttgart and winner of international awards, Rifail Ajdarpasic studied stage and exhibition design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung/ZKM in Karlsruhe. From 2003 to 2007, he regularly designed the sets for Calixto Bieito's opera and theatre productions in Europe with Ariane Isabell Unfried, among others, with whom he continues to have a close collaboration, and during this period he had a decisive influence on his stage aesthetic. Of particular note from this period are Verdi's "La traviata" and "Don Carlos", "The Rake's Progress" (Stravinsky), "Elektra" (R. Strauss), "King Lear" (Reimann) and "Hamlet" (Thomas). In recent years, Rifail Ajdarpasic has worked with Nicola Berloffa, Francisco Negrin, Immo Karaman, David Hermann, Hendrik Müller, Philipp Kochheim and Ulrich Peters. Since 2007, he has also created a number of joint concepts with Carlos Wagner, for example for "La damnation de Faust" (Berlioz), "The Fall of the House of Usher" (Glass), Wagner's "Der fliegende Holländer" and "Lohengrin", "Cecilia Valdés" by Gonzalo Roig and, in 2022, "Notre Dame" by Franz Schmidt for the 16th St. Gallen Festival. For the director Francisco Negrin, he created the stage design for "Temistocle" (Metastasio), Vicente Martín y Soler's "L'arbore di Diana" and "Una cosa rara", among others. Prizes were awarded for Nicolai's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (director: David Hermann) in Switzerland and Bizet's "Carmen" (director: Nicola Berloffa) at the Oper Sankt Gallen and Rennes. The production "Gegen die Wand" (Ludger Vollmer, director: Neco Çelik) at the Stuttgart State Opera was awarded the DER FAUST theatre prize in 2011.
At the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Rifail Ajdarpasic is responsible for the stage design of Bizet's "Carmen" (director: Carlos Wagner). Together with Ariane Isabell Unfried, he will design Paul Abraham's "Fairy Tale in the Grand Hotel" in the 2023/24 season.

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