Introducing: The Dream Team
Rarely do creative teams elicit such euphoric and almost shockingly enamored reactions on every level: from the ensemble to the interns, from journalists to our artistic director—without exception, everyone loves the team behind Killing Carmen! And it seems all of Vienna feels the same way, because as soon as a performance directed by Nils Strunk and Lukas Schrenk—such as Die Zauberflöte – The Opera but Not the Opera or Schachnovelle at the Burgtheater—appears on the program, you really have to be quick to get tickets. Vienna adores these exceptional artists, and so do we! Together with the French musician Gabriel Cazes, they are now creating for the Volksoper a multilingual and multi-musical reinterpretation and continuation of Bizet’s Carmen, titled Killing Carmen, with the world premiere on October 1, 2025.
What sets the artists of this dream team apart?
First, they refuse to be confined to a single profession and always work collaboratively: Nils Strunk, for example, is an actor, musician, composer, and director. That none of these titles are mere vanity or affectation becomes clear in every rehearsal with him. He quickly picks up the guitar to improvise something, instantly comes up with brilliant directorial ideas, and generally develops everything organically from the music itself.
Lukas Schrenk is equally versatile and also comes from an acting background. For the world premiere of Killing Carmen, however, he is primarily responsible as the author of the text and co-directs the production alongside Nils Strunk. What particularly characterizes their directing style is their playful and daring approach to material that experienced directors often avoid like the proverbial devil avoids holy water. They transformed the often-cited “problem piece” Die Zauberflöte into an intelligent delight at the Burgtheater, using their theatrical magic tricks. “Theater should always be careful not to appear moralizing or didactic, or to turn away from the audience in self-reference. I especially like inviting, stimulating, and dreamlike theater,” Lukas Schrenk puts it himself.
Completing the trio in their creation of Killing Carmen is Gabriel Cazes, who describes his ideal theater as “a stage where many great worlds and disciplines collide, with music serving as the magical glue that binds them together.”
We would say: a warm welcome to the Volksoper!
