Nikolaus Habjan

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BIOGRAPHY

Born in Graz in 1987, Nikolaus Habjan is one of the most versatile and sought-after (musical) theatre directors of his generation. Winner of no fewer than three Nestroy Awards, he is renowned not only as a director, but also as an actor and puppeteer, singer and art whistler, transcending genre boundaries with ease.

At the age of only 15, he began exploring puppet theatre, perfecting the use of hand puppets with mobile mouths during studies with Neville Tranter. To this day, he regularly uses this style of puppet in his productions. After studying musical theatre directing in Vienna, his first puppet theatre productions were shown at the Schubert Theater in Vienna, with his work F. Zawrel – erbbiologisch und sozial minderwertig earning him his first Nestroy Award in 2012.

Nikolaus Habjan and his productions have been invited to numerous renowned theatres in Austria and beyond, including Munich’s Residenztheater, the Bavarian State Opera, Vienna's Burgtheater, Theater an der Josefstadt, Theater an der Wien as well as Zurich’s Schauspielhaus. In 2019 The New York Times published a review in its print edition praising Habjan’s work Böhm at the Graz Theatre as a “startlingly… elaborate, virtuosic romp”. During the following 2019/20 season he was appointed “Director in residence” at the Theater an der Wien, where he staged Oberon, Gounod’s Faust and in 2020 Richard Strauss’ Salome, which was nominated in 2021 for the Austrian Musical Theatre Prize. In July 2021 he directed Rheingold – immer noch Loge, an opera by Gordon Kampe, at the Bayreuth Festival, before dedicating himself to Puccini’s Tosca at the Dortmund Opera, where he has been one of the ensemble directors since 2020. This production premiered in the autumn of 2021.

In the 2022/23 season, Nikolaus Habjan directed new productions at the Dortmund Opera (Magic Flute), the Theater an der Wien (La Périchole) or the Semperoper Dresden (L'Orfeo), among others. Together with the Musikbanda Franui and bass-baritone Florian Boesch, he staged Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin in a scenic version at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, followed by further performances at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Bregenz Festival, the Gmunden Festwochen and the Musiktheater an der Wien.

Highlights of this coming season include the revival of Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Theater Basel, as well as new productions at the Dortmund Opera (Orpheus in der Unterwelt), the Theater an der Wien (Wo die wilden Kerle wohnen) and in Cleveland (Magic Flute). He also performs as an art whistler and puppeteer at the Wiener Konzerthaus, Musikverein Wien, Brucknerhaus Linz, Schauspielhaus Graz and Deutsches Theater in Berlin, where he can be seen in the plays Böhm, F. Zawrel - Erbbiologisch und sozial minderwertig and The Hills Are Alive.

In addition to his intense directing schedule, Nikolaus Habjan is an experienced and versatile actor and puppeteer, for example in his celebrated programmes with Musicbanda Franui from Eastern Tyrol, which have taken him to most major concert stages in the German-speaking region. With his passion for another, almost forgotten artistic genre of art whistling, he has been hailed as “Pavarotti and Bartoli in one person” (AZ), specialising in virtuoso coloratura arias, which he regularly performs to acclaim at such venues as Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, the Berlin State Opera and the Bregenz Festival.

2023 | 2024

www.nikolaushabjan.com

This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorized by artist management.

DISCOGRAPHY

FRANUI & Nikolaus Habjan: Kreisler-Lieder
On the occasion of his 100th birthday, the East Tyrolean Musicbanda Franui and the celebrated puppeteer and actor Nikolaus Habjan are dedicating an entire album to the great song composer and word acrobat Georg Kreisler, including songs like „Tauben vergiften im Park“, „Biddla Buh“ or „Der Tod, das muss ein Wiener sein“.
Label: col legno | 2022

VIDEOS

CALENDAR

07Dec2023
Nikolaus Habjan
VIENNA - F. Zawrel - erbbiologisch und sozial minderwertig
Theater in der Josefsstadt, 07:30 pm

Nikolaus Habjan, actor and puppeteer
Simon Meusburger, staging

Habjan's solo performance of the life story of Friedrich Zawrel, tortured in Nazi Austria by the "expert" prison doctor who officially met him again in the later Republic and locked him away once more, is ingenious puppetry for a story that no other genre could have handled so coherently. With sparingly dosed film inserts and linguistically and playfully sovereign handling of the angular loudmouth characters, it became grandiose documentary and emotional theatre in mutual embrace, which was awarded the Nestroy Prize.

FURTHER INFORMATION & TICKETS

16Dec2023
Nikolaus Habjan

Katrin Wundsam
VIENNA - Knussen: Wo die wilden Kerle wohnen
Museumsquartier Halle E, 05:00 pm