13.10.2024

DAVID STEFFENS | Roll debut as Jochanaan in Stuttgart

Following his debut this year at the Bregenz Festival as Kaspar in Der Freischütz, a role he is still performing on stage at his home theatre in Stuttgart in the 1980 production directed by Achim Freyer, David Steffens will soon continue his impressive sequence of important role debuts and - after Ochs auf Lerchenau in Der Rosenkavalier, Hunding in Die Walküre and King Marke in Tristan und Isolde - will soon be heard as Jochanaan in Richard Strauss' Salome.

Kirill Serebrennikov's 2015 production of the ‘Stuttgart’ Salome, whose revival has been entrusted to the musical direction of Tomáš Hanus, vividly illustrates how the excesses of a hedonistic, authoritarian society affect the next generation and how love, as a potential escape from violence, leads to radical possessiveness.

With Gurnemanz in Parsifal in April 2025, David Steffens will finally make another major role debut with one of the central bass roles in the German repertoire.

Cast

Chad Shelton, Herod
Sophie Koch, Herodias
Simone Schneider, Salome
David Steffens, Jochanaan's voice
Luis Hergón, Jochanaan's body
Moritz Kallenberg, Narraboth
Lana Maletić, A Page
Torsten Hofmann, First Jew
Heinz Göhrig, Second Jew
Leopold Bier, Third Jew
Joseph Tancredi, Fourth Jew
Andrew Bogard, Fifth Jew
Michael Nagl, First Nazarene
Jacobo Ochoa, Second Nazarene
Jasper Leever, First Soldier
Aleksander Myrling, Second Soldier
Marius-Sebastian Aron, A Cappadocian
Elena Salvatori, A Slave

Tomáš Hanus, Musical direction
Kirill Serebrennikov, Direction & Costumes
Pierre Jorge Gonzalez, stage
Ilya Shagalov, video
Reinhard Traub, lighting
Ann-Christine Mecke, dramaturgy