See the music, hear the dance

Michael Küster is German. After studying German language and literature, art and speech science at the University of Halle, he worked as a presenter, author and announcer for various broadcasting organizations in Germany. There, he presented a wide range of classical music programmes and live broadcasts of major concert events, including from the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Semperoper Dresden and the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. To this day, he remains associated with the radio programme SWR Kultur. Since 2002, he has been a dramaturg at the Zurich Opera House, working with directors including Matthias Hartmann, David Alden, Robert Carsen, Moshe Leiser/Patrice Caurier, Damiano Michieletto, David Pountney, Johannes Schaaf and Graham Vick. As a dramaturg for the Zurich Ballet, Michael Küster has worked with Cathy Marston, Marco Goecke, Marcos Morau, Kim Brandstrup, Edward Clug, Alexei Ratmansky, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Mats Ek and Hans van Manen, among others, since 2012. With Christian Spuck, he created, among other works, "Winterreise" ("Prix Benois de la Danse"), "Romeo and Juliet", "Messa da Requiem" and "The Sleeping Beauty". At La Scala in Milan, Michael Küster was dramaturg for Matthias Hartmann's opera productions of "Der Freischütz", "Idomeneo" and "Pique Dame".

Gábor Káli was born in Budapest. He studied piano and conducting at the Béla Bartók Conservatory and at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, as well as at the Berlin University of the Arts, and was supported by the Conductors’ Forum of the German Music Council. After engagements as a conductor at the Theater Aachen and as First and Second Kapellmeister and Deputy General Music Director at the Staatstheater Nürnberg, he won the Hong Kong International Conducting Competition in 2018 as well as the "Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award" at the Salzburg Festival. Since 2015 he has maintained a regular collaboration with the Hungarian State Opera, where he conducted the new production of "Don Pasquale" in 2016. Guest conducting engagements have taken him, among others, to the Semperoper Dresden ("Die Zauberflöte"), the Opera Graz ("Madama Butterfly"), the Bavarian State Opera ("Turandot" and "The Bartered Bride"), the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden (Péter Eötvös’ "Sleepless") and the Cologne Opera ("Così fan tutte"). In the 2025/26 season, he conducted György Kurtág’s opera "Fin de partie" at the Theater Basel.

George Balanchine (born Georgi Balanchivadze) was born in St. Petersburg in 1904, the son of a Georgian composer. He was trained as a dancer at the Imperial Ballet Academy and, after graduating in 1921, began his first professional engagement. At the same time, he studied piano and composition for three years at the conservatory in his hometown. He began creating his own choreographies as early as 1920. In 1924, during a tour of Germany with the Soviet State Dancers, he took the opportunity to introduce himself to Serge Diaghilev, who engaged him as a dancer and choreographer for his "Ballets Russes". This also marked the beginning of his intensive collaboration and friendship with Igor Stravinsky. After Diaghilev’s death in 1929, Balanchine worked sporadically in London, Copenhagen, Monte Carlo and Paris and founded his company "Les Ballets 1933". At the invitation of Lincoln Kirstein, he moved to New York in August 1933 and became director of the newly founded "School of American Ballet", from whose students he assembled his first American company, which made its New York debut in 1935 as the "American Ballet". Between 1935 and 1951, Balanchine occasionally choreographed for Broadway and for several Hollywood films, but the main focus of his work was the "Ballet Society", of which he was a co-founder. In 1948, it was transformed into the "New York City Ballet" and moved into the City Center. Here Balanchine created his most important choreographies, with which he also toured Europe. In 1962, he traveled to the Soviet Union for the first time with the New York City Ballet. In spring 1964, Balanchine and his company moved into the New York State Theater, which had been built according to his wishes. George Balanchine died in New York in 1983. Today, his choreographies are managed worldwide by the Balanchine Trust.

The internationally renowned choreographer Cathy Marston holds both British and Swiss citizenship. Since August 2023, she has been Director of the Zurich Ballet. She received her dance training in Cambridge and at the Royal Ballet School in London. Between 1994 and 1999, she danced with the Zurich Ballet, the ballet of the Lucerne Theatre and Konzert Theater Bern. From 2002 to 2006, she was an Associate Artist at the Royal Opera House London, and from 2007 to 2013, she was Director of Ballet at Konzert Theater Bern. Having worked for many years with great success as a freelance choreographer, Cathy Marston has been invited by a large number of renowned international companies and institutions. Her creations have included works for the Royal Ballet, the Hamburg Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the English National Ballet, the Northern Ballet, the Finnish National Ballet, Ballet Black, the National Ballet of Cuba, as well as Opera Australia and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. In recent years, she has increasingly worked in the USA, including for the San Francisco Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Houston Ballet and Joffrey Ballet Chicago. In her choreographic works, she brings great works of literature to life through dance; she also approaches important historical figures in unconventional and original ways. She achieved great success with her ballet adaptations "Mrs. Robinson" (after Charles Webb's novel "The Graduate"), "Snowblind" (after Edith Wharton's novel "Ethan Frome"), Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" and John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men". Unusual perspectives also characterize her biographically inspired works "The Cellist", "Victoria" and "Hexenhatz". Cathy Marston has received numerous awards for her choreographic work, including a South Bank Sky Arts Award and the British National Dance Award. In 2020, the International Institute for Dance and Theatre awarded her a prize for excellence in international dance. The highlight of her first season as Director of the Zurich Ballet was the 2024 world premiere of "Atonement", based on the novel of the same name by Ian McEwan (a co-production with the Joffrey Ballet). In addition, Cathy Marston's works "The Cellist", "Snowblind" and "Mrs. Robinson" were performed in Zurich. Her most recent works are the Clara Schumann ballet "Clara", "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

Chloe Lamford ist Bühnenbildnerin und arbeitet in den Bereichen Theater, Oper, Musik und Installation. Sie absolvierte eine Ausbildung in Theatre Design an der Wimbledon School of Art und erhielt 2013 das Arts Foundation Fellowship for Design for Performance. Sie ist Associate Designerin am Royal Court Theatre in London, wo sie Räume für Is God Is, Shoe Lady, The Cane, Pity, Gun Dog, Victory Condition, B, Road, Unreachable, The Twits, God Bless The Child, How to Hold Your Breath, Circle Mirror Transformation, Teh Internet is Serious Business, 2071 und Open Court entwarf. 2017 kreierte sie mit The Site einen temporären Theaterraum und eine Installation. Für das Londoner National Theatre entstanden u.a. The Antipodes, Phaedra, Othello, John, Amadeus und The World of Extreme Happiness. Weitere Produktionen führten sie u.a. an den New Yorker Broadway (Hilary and Clinton), das Theater Basel (Hexenjagd), die Schaubühne in Berlin (u.a. Atmen und Ophelias Zimmer) sowie an das Old Vic (The American Clock). Für ihre Arbeit bei Small Miracle am Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn erhielt sie den britischen Theaterpreis für das «Beste Bühnendesign». In der Oper arbeitete sie u.a. bereits am Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Theodora, Rusalka), der Royal Danish Opera (The Handmaid’s Tale), der English National Opera (La bohème), der Opéra Comique in Paris (Miranda) sowie beim Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (Ariadne auf Naxos, Alcina, Pelléas et Mélisande). Zu ihren jüngsten Arbeiten gehören Julie am Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Cyrano de Bergerac an der Comédie-Française sowie Next to Normal im Londoner West End und am Donmar Warehouse.

The Irish costume and set designer Annemarie Woods won the Ring Award in Graz in 2011 together with the British director Sam Brown. In joint productions with Sam Brown she designed, among others, "I Capuleti e i Montecchi" at the Teatro Sociale di Como, "Der Zigeunerbaron" at Stadttheater Klagenfurt, "Sigurd der Drachentöter" at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, "Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno" at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, the world premiere of Gerald Barry’s opera "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the Opéra National de Lorraine in Nancy, and "La Cenerentola" at Lucerne Theatre. She also has a long-standing collaboration with director Oliver Mears, for whose productions of "Macbeth", "Salome", "L’elisir d’amore" and "Don Giovanni" she likewise designed the costumes and sets. Further works include "Candide" in Nancy, "Agrippina" in Limerick, "My Fair Lady" in Karlsruhe and "L’Heure espagnole/Gianni Schicchi" (directed by Bruno Ravella) at the Opéra National de Lorraine. With Ted Huffman she collaborated, among other projects, in Frankfurt on "Rinaldo", in Cologne on "Salome", in Montpellier on "Le Songe d’une nuit d’été", at Deutsche Oper Berlin on "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" and in Zurich on "Madama Butterfly". She also designed the costumes for "Pagliacci/Cavalleria rusticana" in Amsterdam (directed by Robert Carsen), for "La traviata" at the Komische Oper Berlin (directed by Nicola Raab) and for "Osud" at the Janáček Brno Festival (directed by Robert Carsen). At Zurich Opera House she designed the costumes for Adele Thomas’s production of "Il trovatore", Ted Huffman’s productions of "Madama Butterfly", "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "Roméo et Juliette", as well as for Evgeny Titov’s production of "L’Orfeo".

Edward Kemp, born in Oxford, has collaborated with Cathy Marston on more than twenty ballets, including seven for Bern Ballett. Recent collaborations include "Summer & Smoke" (Houston/American Ballet Theatre), "Of Mice and Men" (Joffrey), "Mrs. Robinson" (San Francisco), "The Cellist" (Royal Ballet), "The Suit" (Ballet Black), "Lady Chatterley’s Lover" (Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal), "Liaisons Dangereuses" (Royal Danish Ballet), and a screenplay for Disney+. He has written texts for composers such as Sally Beamish, Victoria Borisova Ollas, Jason Carr, Tansy Davies, Terry Davies, Péter Eötvös, Stuart MacRae, Julian Philips, and Gary Yershon. In theatre, his works include "King James Bible" (National Theatre), "The Mysteries" (Royal Shakespeare Company), as well as stage adaptations of Bulgakov’s "The Master and Margarita" (Chichester/Complicite/Avignon), Lessing’s "Nathan the Wise" (Chichester/Off-Broadway/Shaw Festival), and Faulkner’s "As I Lay Dying" (Baton Rouge). He also adapted works by Brecht, Goldoni, Kleist, Lorca, Prokofiev, Molière, Racine, and Sibelius for the stage and translated novels by Paul Auster, Eça de Queirós, Charles Dickens, Knut Hamsun, Ted Hughes, Salman Rushdie, and W. G. Sebald. He has written dramas and comedies for BBC Radio and directed plays and musicals in the United Kingdom and the United States, from authors such as Gertrude Stein and William Shakespeare to Alan Bennett and Stephen Sondheim. From 2008 to 2021 he was Director and Chief Executive of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Today he is Chief Executive of the Royal Literary Fund, the oldest literary charity in the United Kingdom.

Justin Peck is a director, choreographer, filmmaker, dancer and lives in New York City. He is Resident Choreographer of the New York City Ballet. With over 50 dance and theatre works, he has gained international recognition. His creations have been performed at renowned venues such as the Lincoln Center, the Palais Garnier, the Sydney Opera House, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and on Broadway. Dance companies worldwide, including the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris, the Australian Ballet, the Semperoper Ballett, the Hong Kong Ballet, the Boston Ballet, the Juilliard School, the National Ballet of Canada, the Miami City Ballet, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, the LA Dance Project, Het Nationale Ballet, the School of American Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet and the Houston Ballet, have presented his works. Peck is also active as a filmmaker and has made a name for himself particularly through music videos for artists such as The National, Chris Thile and Dan Deacon. He was also responsible for the choreography in the films "West Side Story" (2021) and "Maestro" (2023). In 2018, he was commissioned by the "New York Times" to create ten films to honor outstanding acting performances of the year. These included performances by Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Lakeith Stanfield, Glenn Close, Emma Stone and Toni Collette. From 2006 to 2019, Peck was a member of the New York City Ballet and was promoted to soloist in 2013. During this time, he danced in works by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp, Alexei Ratmansky, Lynn Taylor-Corbett, Christopher Wheeldon and many others. Peck has received numerous awards, including three Tony Awards for "Best Choreography" for the Broadway productions "Carousel" and "Illinoise" as well as the musical "Buena Vista Social Club". He has also received the National Arts Award, the Golden Plate Honor of the Academy of Achievement, the Bessie Award for "Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes", the World Choreography Award for the choreography in "West Side Story" and the Lucille Lortel Award for the new musical "Buena Vista Social Club".