Draft:Carl Friedrich Oberle

Carl Friedrich Oberle, is an opera and theater designer for both stage and costumes, that was born in Winnenden, Baden-Württemberg in 1944. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and served as a lecturer and design consultant at the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center at Harvard University, USA.

Since 1972, he has worked in more than 200 stage productions in theater and opera houses across various stages in Europe, the USA, and Australia.

Career

His early engagements took him to the Southeast Bavarian City Theater in Landshut and Passau, followed by work in Ingolstadt, Mannheim, Gelsenkirchen, and Tübingen.

Since 1978, Oberle has been a freelance stage and costume designer, notably working with the Welsh National Opera, where he designed productions such as The Ring of the Nibelung, The Magic Flute, A Masked Ball, Der Rosenkavalier, and Don Carlos. He also contributed to the Music Theater in Gelsenkirchen, the Wiesbaden State Theater, and in Sweden for the Royal Opera, the Dramaten in Stockholm, and the Drottningholm Palace Theater.

Oberle's work has taken him to opera houses in Stuttgart, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Geneva, and Amsterdam, as well as the Aalto Theater in Essen. He designed the set for The Marriage of Figaro in Prague, Radamisto at the Handel Festival in Halle, The Demon at the Bregenz Festival and Zurich Opera House, as well as Billy Budd at the English National Opera and the Canadian National Opera in Toronto. Additionally, he designed the costumes for a production of La Bohème at the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden.

In the USA, Carl Friedrich Oberle created designs for productions such as Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, The Marriage of Figaro, Idomeneo, and Billy Budd at the Houston Grand Opera. He also designed for Elektra, The Silent Woman, Intermezzo, Feuersnot, Peace Day, Daphne, and The Marriage of Figaro at the Santa Fe Opera.

In Australia, Oberle created numerous stage sets and costumes for Opera Australia in Sydney, including productions of The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, La clemenza di Tito, Idomeneo, The Coronation of Poppea, Der Rosenkavalier, The Makropulos Affair, and Billy Budd. In Adelaide, he designed A Dream Play and staged the Australian premiere of Parsifal. A number of select productions of Oberle's works have been recorded on film.

Oberle's principal collaborator in productions in Australia, USA and the UK was the Göran Järvefelt who died in 1989.

Since 1993, Oberle has collaborated closely with director Rosamund Gilmore on productions such as The English Trilogy, Ghosts, and Aus Deutschland at the Wiesbaden State Theater, as well as Bremer Freedom, West Side Story, Molière or The Executioners of Comedy, Der Rosenkavalier, Greek Passion, Noach, The Autumn of the Patriarch, and No Silence but the Wind's in Bremen. Together, they have staged Eugene Onegin, Wolf Cub Village, The Blind, The Coronation of Poppea, and Un re in ascolto at the Frankfurt Opera. In Darmstadt, they worked on Orlando and Rodelinda, in Gelsenkirchen on Turandot, Parsifal, Il Trovatore, and Don Giovanni. Oberle also designed Gilmore's productions of Tannhäuser and The Love for Three Oranges in Kassel, The Emperor's Mirror in Gelsenkirchen and Münster, and Sugar in Constance. In Nuremberg, they produced Tannhäuser, and in Munich, Beauty and the Beast and The Magic Flute at the State Theater at Gärtnerplatz, as well as Three Sisters at the Prinzregententheater