Barbara de Limburg
Designer
The excellent scenery of Barbara de Limburg metamorphoses naturally, enlarging or dwarfing the stage, never betraying the original dramaturgy and providing in Ford's house spaces at different levels, hiding enough for them to manoeuvre one another. In the final scene, the forest as such does not exist, but lights and shadows frame the entanglement. What was already anticipated in the second act becomes starkly evident when a reflective wall shows fleetingly to the spectators in their seats: we are all deceived.
We are witnessing stupendously effective stage design - a scenic work as cunning as it is clever, where the fairytale becomes modern and the irony is clear behind the amusement on the surface.
Barbara de Limburg designs for both theatre and opera, creating sets with great style, imagination and visual beauty. Born in Brussels, she studied set design at La Cambre, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels, graduating in 1996. Initially, she worked mainly in theatre and in dance before expanding into opera.
Barbara enjoys a collaboration with director Laurent Pelly; current and recent projects include La Voyage Dans la Lune for L’opéra Comique in Paris (2020), Falstaff for Teatro Real Madrid (2019), Massenet’s Cendrillon for the Lyric Opera of Chicago (2019), Rimsky-Korsakov’s Le Coq d’Or for La Monnaie / De Munt (2016) Teatro Real Madrid (2017) Opéra national de Lorraine (2017), also winner of the Prix de l'Europe Francophone awarded by L’Association Professionnelle de la Critique, and Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénedict for the 2016 Glyndebourne Festival.
Collaborations with other directors include Idomeneno with Christophe Gayral for Opéra national du Rhin and La traviata and Hänsel und Gretel for Angers Nantes Opéra with Emmanuel Bastet.
Verdi: Falstaff, Teatro Real, 2019
Massenet: Cendrillon, Metropolitan Opera, 2018
Humperdinck: Hansel and Gretel, Opéra national de Lorraine, 2017
Rimsky-Korsakov: Le Coq d'Or, La Monnaie / De Munt, 2016
Berlioz: Béatrice et Bénédict, Glyndebourne, 2016
Ravel: L'enfant et les sortilèges, Glyndebourne, 2015
Verdi: La traviata, Angers Nantes Opera, 2013
Satie: Mémoires d’un Amnésique, Théâtre national de Toulouse, 2013
Massenet: Cendrillon, Royal Opera London, 2011
Rossini: Il viaggio a Reims, Nuremberg State Opera, 2011
Williams: Short Stories, Théâtre national de Toulouse, 2011
Massenet: Don Quichotte, La Monnaie / De Munt, Brussels, 2010
Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel, Glyndebourne 2008
Janácek: The Cunning Little Vixen, Saito Kinen Festival, Matsumoto, 2008
Video gallery
1 publicity photo
News and Articles
Brilliant staging marks the return of 'Falstaff' to the Teatro Real
El Pais 2 May 2019Laurent Pelly's production of Massenet's Cendrillion premieres at the Metropolitan Opera
10 April 2018Awards for Maestro Arts Artists
19 June 2017Pelly and de Limburg enthrall audiences with their Golden Cockerel
12 December 2016A fun and feisty trip through the woods with Hansel and Gretel in Seattle
18 October 2016Starry Nights at Glyndebourne as Béatrice finds her Bénédict
21 July 2016New production of Hansel and Gretel opens at Nantes Opera
Set Design by Barbara de Limburg 11 December 2015
