Costume design

Ariane Isabell Unfried

Ariane Isabell Unfried was born in Hamburg and studied stage and costume design at the Escuela Real de Artes Dramáticos in Madrid, the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and the ZKM Design Academy in Karlsruhe.

At the beginning of her career as a stage and costume designer, she worked on various dance and theatre productions in Spain and Austria, which included regular collaborations with the Austrian choreographer and dancer Nikolaus Adler.

From 2003 to 2007, she enjoyed a close artistic collaboration with Rifail Ajdarpasic, regularly designing the stage sets and sometimes costumes for the international opera and theatre productions of the famous Spanish director Calixto Bieito (including »La traviata«, »Il trovatore«, »The Rake’s Progress«, »Elektra», Don Carlos«, »King Lear«, »Hamlet«) in Germany, England, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

In addition, she regularly collaborates with the director Francisco Negrín (including »Temistocle«, »L’arbore di Diana«, »Una cosa rara«, »Thaïs«) at the major Spanish opera houses in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, and also in Germany and France.

Since 2007, she has also regularly designed the costumes for the opera productions of the Venezuelan-German director Carlos Wagner (including »La damnation de Faust« and »I due Foscari«) in Germany, Spain, Switzerland and France.

In 2011, the contemporary opera production »Gegen die Wand«, directed by Neco Celik and with costumes by Ariane Isabell Unfried was awarded the »Faustpreis«.

In recent years, she has been responsible for the costume design on new productions such as »Iolanta« in France and »Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor« in Belgium and Switzerland, both directed by David Hermann, the latter of which received the Paris Critics' Award; other productions include »Carmen« (director: Nicola Berloffa) in Switzerland, the contemporary opera production »Crusades« at Theater Freiburg (director: Neco Celik) and »Lotario« (director: Carlos Wagner) for the International Handel Festival in Göttingen as a co-production with Konzert Theater Bern (director: Carlos Wagner).

Her most recent work at the Gärtnerplatztheater was as costume designer for the opera of »The Fall of the House of Usher« (director: Carlos Wagner) in 2011.