We asked the participants of the “Opera Director: A career for you” workshop to share what they have learnt throughout workshop and what their impressions are.
The workshop was organised in Belgrade from November 23rd to November 26th. During the course of three days, participants got to learn about the scale and diverse scopes within which a stage director of music works.
The workshop themes included technical work, working with the score, preparations, difficulties, relationships and timetables. Kristiina Helin, a stage director with an illustrious, 30-year long career led the workshop, throughout which she shared the process of preparing an opera piece, alongside useful examples, starting from the idea “what” is a director and developing the process step by step.
Kristiina studied at the East 15 Acting School/ University of Essex, England in London in 1991. She took further acting classes in Wales with Odin Teatret, founded by the legendary theatre director Jerzy Grotowski, and collaborated with the influential choreographer Lemi Ponifasio in Japan.
Helin trained as an opera director by working as an assistant director in Sibelius Academy and the Finnish National Opera. In 2000, Helin set up her own opera company, Graal Opera, and produced her first work as stage director.
Within the past decade, concerts visualisations and semi-staged productions have formed an increasingly important part of Helin’s work. She has visualised contemporary music concerts as well as concert versions of opera productions, the most notable of which was Leoš Janáček’s From the House of the Dead with Esa-Pekka Salonen.
The project was supported by European network of opera academies - enoa Creative Europe and the Ministry of Culture and information.