There is probably no director who has mastered the art of bowing as confidently as Hans Neuenfels. No matter how loud the waves of indignation might be, which burned against him at the premieres of his opera productions, Hans Neuenfels always remained the sovereign grand seigneur, who presented himself to the audience smiling, but without any trace of defiance or being offended. His composure in these moments might also be due to the certainty that the audience would sooner or later change its judgement - as had happened several times since he first staged opera in 1974. He had made his debut in Nuremberg with Verdi's IL TROVATORE at the age of 33, and many of Neuenfels' most stirring productions were to continue to be associated with Verdi: his legendary Frankfurt maid's AIDA, which in 1981 made his name synonymous with the radical new questioning that musical theatre had to face at that time, but also the works with which he established his understanding of opera in Berlin. Even the first Neuenfels production at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, LA FORZA DEL DESTINO, caused a theatrical uproar in 1982 that reverberated for years to come and was to be repeated with equal vehemence later, with IL TROVATORE in 1996 and NABUCCO in 2000. In fact, however, these reactions were also proof that Neuenfels was always able to surprise audiences anew. The fantastic visual worlds in which he narrated seemingly familiar material were almost inexhaustible and each piece was able to release a different associative space in him. The greatest uproar his work caused at the Deutsche Oper Berlin was of a completely different kind: when the revival of his last work at the house, IDOMENEO, which was produced in 2003, was taken off the programme three years later out of fear of Islamist-motivated hostility, it triggered a social debate in which the entire Western world took part.

With the six productions he realised at the Deutsche Oper Berlin between 1982 and 2003, Hans Neuenfels wrote a chapter in staging history and changed our concept of what music theatre can achieve.

Deutsche Oper mourns the loss of an artist to whom it owes much.