Katrin Lea Tag
Set & Costume Designer
© Monika Rittershaus
Katrin Lea Tag has made a name for herself as a set and costume designer. She works regularly at leading opera houses around the world with directors including Barrie Kosky, Michael Thalheimer (Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Der Freischütz at the Staatsoper in Berlin), Christof Loy (Maria Stuarda at the Musiktheater an der Wien), Lotte de Beer (Iolanta at the Volksoper and State Opera in Vienna), Nadja Loschky (Ariana et Barbe-bleue at Oper Graz) and Hans Heuenfels (Ariadne auf Naxos at the Staatsoper in Berlin. Her first Barrie Kosky, a director with whom she has collaborated closely for many years, production at Oper Frankfurt was a Dido and Aeneas / Bluebeard's Castle double bill in 2010. This was followed by Carmen, which has taken on cult status and was performed at Covent Garden in 2018, and a breathtaking Salome, which was nominated for a DER FAUST German Theatre Prize and performed at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in 2024. She returned to Frankfurt for Klaus Guth's recent new Elektra and this wonderful Kosky production of Handel's Hercules, which both opened in 2023. She and Kosky staged Handel's Saul at the Royal Danish Opera and the Dialogue of the Carmelites for Den Norske Opera & Ballet and hugely successful productions, including The Bassarids, Sorotschinzi Fair, The Monteverdi – Trilogy, The Tales of Hoffmann and Falstaff, at the Komische Oper in Berlin. She also designed sets and costumes for Kosky productions of Handel's Saul and Poulenc's Dialogue of the Carmelites in Glyndebourne, Castor and Pollux at English National Opera in London, From the House of the Dead at the Staatsoper in Hannover (2009 Theaterpreis DER FAUST) and Les Boréades at the Opéra de Dijon. She has worked with Claus Guth (Jephtha in Amsterdam and Paris), Holger Müller-Brandes and Matthew Wild (Porgy and Bess Theater an der Wien, which won the Austrian Music Theatre Prize) and, regularly, with Michael Thalheimer, at theatres including the Staatsoper and Deutsche Theater Berlin, the Burgtheater in Vienna and Schauspiel Frankfurt. She designed costumes for Dimiter Gotscheff's Iwanow (Theatertreffen – a big honour - 2006) at the Volksbühne in Berlin. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and won 1st prize at the 1997 Graz International Competition for Direction and the Stage, was nominated for »Best Designer« at the 2019 International Opera Awards in London and voted »Set Designer of the Year of« by Opernwelt magazine in 2020. Plans for 2024/25 include a new production of Sweeney Todd at the Komische Oper Berlin.