rocafilm

The Austrian film makers Carmen Zimmermann and Roland Horvath set up their production company rocafilm in 2010 to produce videos for operas and plays and also to make documentary films. They first worked with Damiano Michieletto on his production of La bohème at the 2012 Salzburg Festival, following this up with Idomeneo at the Theater an der Wien, Falstaff and La Cenerentola at the 2013 and 2014 Salzburg Festivals (with a revival of Falstaff at La Scala, Milan), Die Zauberflöte and the world premiere of Filippo Perocco’s Aquagranda (2017 Premio Abbiati, special prize) at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Rigoletto at the Dutch National Opera, La Damnation de Faust at the Rome Opera (2018 Premio Abbiati for best production), Don Pasquale at the Paris Opéra, Der ferne Klang at the Frankfurt Opera and La Cenerentola at the Dresden Semperoper.

Other directors with whom rocafilm has worked at the Salzburg Festival include Moche Leiser and Patrice Caurier (Giulio Cesare, 2012), Luc Bondy (Marc-André Dalbavie’s Charlotte Salomon, 2014) and Robert Carsen (Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, 2021). At the Salzburg Easter Festival the team has also worked with Philipp Stölzl on Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci in 2015, and in 2017 they helped to reconstruct Günther Schneider-Siemssen’s legendary designs for Die Walküre from 1967.

Carmen Zimmermann and Roland Horvath have worked regularly with Claus Guth since 2018: the world premiere of Michael Jarrell’s Bérénice in Paris was followed by Handel’s Orlando at the Theater an der Wien, the world premiere of Chaya Czernowin’s Heart Chamber at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Salome at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre and Jenůfa at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In the autumn of 2020 rocafilm was responsible for the overall conception and video designs for a production of Madama Butterfly at the Mannheim Nationaltheater.

Engagements in the spoken theatre have taken Carmen Zimmermann and Roland Horvath to the Graz Schauspielhaus, where they have worked with Alexander Eisenach and Volker Hesse. In 2020 they created the video designs for Jürgen Flimm’s production of Don Karlos at the Cologne Schauspiel. They are also the authors and directors of two documentaries made in Asia: Between Days and Dreams (2011) and Sister Heart (2015).