Stefan Hageneier

Stefan Hageneier was born in 1972 in Oberammergau. Jürgen Rose employed the trained wood sculptor as his assistent in 1991 at the Munich Kammerspiele. From 1996, Hageneier worked as a freelance stage and costume designer. This was followed by collaborations with directors including Robert Wilson (Time Rocker by Lou Reed at the Thalia Theater Hamburg), Prometeo; Tragedia dell'ascolto by Luigi Nono/Massimo Cacciari in 1998; Opéra de la Monnaie in Brussels; and the 'Steel Velvet' art installation at Villa Stuck Munich in 1998). Their collaborative art installation, 14 Stations, explored the Stations of the Cross for the Oberammergau Passion Plays. Under the directorship of Dieter Dorn at the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel, Hageneier was engaged as a permanent stage and costume designer from 2001 to 2010. He has also worked at numerous German-speaking theatres, including the Munich Kammerspiele, Schaubühne Berlin, the Berliner Ensemble, the Burgtheater in Vienna, Schauspielhaus Wien, Schauspiel Bonn, Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf, Staatstheater Hannover, Schauspielhaus Zürich. Other engagements include the state operas of Munich, Hamburg and Dortmund.
Recently, he has worked with directors such as Benedict Andrews, Florian Boesch, Harald Clemen, Dieter Dorn, Thomas Langhoff, James McDonald, Franz Xaver Kroetz, Yoshi Oida, Thomas Dannemann, Katharina Thoma and Tina Lanik. Hageneier designed the sets and costumes for the Passion Plays in 2000, 2010 and 2020, as well as for major drama and opera productions in Oberammergau, which now take place annually. Together with Christian Stückl, he also worked on the operas Palestrina by Hans Pfitzner in 2009 and Ariadne on Naxos by Richard Strauss in 2011. Since 2011, Hageneier has been professor of Stage and Costume Design at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin. In the 2019/20 season, he designed the set for The Situation, in a world premiere production by Tina Lanik.