Olaf Winter

The German lighting designer Olaf Winter began his theatre career at the Wolfgang Borchert Theatre in Münster, while also studying musicology, journalism and German language and literature. From 1986 to 1989 he studied lighting design at the Studio and Forum of Stage Design in New York. In 1989 he started to work as lighting designer for William Forsythe and the Frankfurt Ballet. He became lighting designer for the Frankfurt Opera in 1994. Since his formative years with Forsythe, he has designed lighting for numerous productions at the Frankfurt Opera, and for the Salzburg Festival (where he made his debut in 1998 with Káťa Kabanová), the Paris Opéra, the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, La Scala, Milan, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and other major opera houses. He regularly collaborates with directors including Claus Guth, Christof Loy and Christoph Marthaler. In 2001 Olaf Winter was named technical director of the Frankfurt Opera; he took up the same position with the Schauspiel Frankfurt in 2009. Since leaving his roles in Frankfurt this year, he has continued to work as a sought-after lighting designer for opera productions, and as a consultant for theatre construction projects.

Olaf Winter lives with his family of five children in Tübingen.