A dream directing team:
Cornelius Obonya, a scion of the renowned Viennese Hörbiger acting dynasty, is at home on all the major stages of the German-speaking world—from Vienna’s Burgtheater to Berlin’s Schaubühne and the Salzburg Festival. He also enjoyed great success in Mel Brooks’ Broadway musical The Producers at the Ronacher in Vienna and the Admiralspalast in Berlin, as well as in film and television (Tatort) and in Adults in the Room, directed by Costa-Gavras, at the Venice Film Festival. Obonya has received several awards, including the O.E. Hasse Prize and the title of Kammerschauspieler.
His wife, author and director Carolin Pienkos, was hired by the Burgtheater in Vienna after studying linguistics, literature, and cultural studies in Bremen, where she primarily assisted Andrea Breth while she began staging her own productions at the Kasino and the Vestibül of the Burgtheater, the Akademietheater, the Schauspielhaus, and the stadtTheater Walfischgasse in Vienna. She received a nomination for the NESTROY Theater Award (Special Prize).
Together, the two devote themselves to opera direction and have set themselves the goal of telling the works entrusted to them exactly as they were written, while at the same time establishing a connection to the present day.
Their productions to date have included:
2018 La Scala, Mailand Johann Strauss: The Bat
2019 Oper im Steinbruch, St. Margarethen W.A. Mozart: The Magic Flute
2022 herbstgold festival, Schloss Esterhazy W.A. Mozart: Bastien und Bastienne
2024 Oper Burg Gars G. Donizetti: L’elisir d’amore
2025 Oper Burg Gars G. Verdi: La traviata
2026 Stadttheater Klagenfurt C.W. Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice
05/2026
