About

Ersan Mondtag is an interdisciplinary artist, particularly in the field of visual arts, theater and opera.

His works have been shown internationally, and he has been invited to collaborate with institutions such as the Berliner Ensemble, the Munich Kammerspiele, MMK Frankfurt, Kunsthalle Baden Baden, Schauspiel Köln, Thalia Hamburg, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Schauspiel Gent, Staatsoper Hannover, as well as the Lyon Opera and the Burgtheater Vienna. Recently, he has showcased his works at NT Gent, the Opera Antwerp, in Lorraine, Krakow, Istanbul, Rome, Belgrade and Venice.

He has interpreted a variety of classics, such as ›The Oresteia‹ at the Thalia Theater Hamburg, ›Freischütz‹ at the Staatsoper Kassel, ›Antichrist‹ at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, as well as contemporary works, including Elfriede Jelinek's ›Fury‹ at Schauspiel Köln, ›Wonderland Avenue‹ (Schauspiel Köln), and the ›Hatred Triptych‹ by Sybille Berg (Wiener Festwochen and Gorki Theater Berlin), ›Phaedra‹ by Thomas Jonigk at Schauspiel Köln, or ›The Inheritance‹ by Olga Bach at the Munich Kammerspiele. His own piece developments, such as ›Tyranny‹ (Staatstheater Kassel), ›The Boarding School‹ (Schauspiel Dortmund), and ›The Annihilation‹ (Theater Bern) were invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen.

At the Berlinale 2023, Mondtag made his debut as a director in a ›theater-in-film‹ project: In the film ›Seneca‹ (directed by Robert Schwencke), he adapted the Seneca play ›Thyestes‹ with Samuel Finzi, Louis Hofmann, and John Malkovich.

In 2024, he co-designed the German Pavilion at the 60th Art Biennale in Venice with multimedia artist Yael Bartana.

Mondtag has received multiple awards, both for his directing and his original stage design compositions. He was honored in 2016 as the costume designer, newcomer director, and newcomer stage designer of the year (Theater heute) for ›Tyranny‹, in 2017 as stage and costume designer for ›The Annihilation‹, and in 2019 with the 3sat Prize for ›The Boarding School‹. Recently, he received the Oper! Award as ›best stage designer‹ for ›The Blacksmith of Gent‹, the title of ›Stage Designer of the Year‹ in the 2022 critics' poll of Deutsche Bühne, and the award for ›best European opera production‹ at the prestigious critics' prize in France for ›The Silver Lake‹.

The range of works and awards reflects Mondtag's performative and interdisciplinary vision of theater, which has always been nourished—especially since his recent deeper engagement with opera—by the ›spirit of music‹. Mondtag's works address the mechanisms of our psyche, revealing victims and perpetrators of language and rationality. Thus, expressionistically overwhelming visual worlds emerge (›Salome‹, Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin), as well as quiet surreal studies (›De Living‹ at NT Gent), challenging perceptual conventions and injecting a powerful sensuality into rigid realities.