Laurent Brunner
President
Direc
tor of Opéra Royal / Château de Versailles Spectacles.
Since September 2007, Laurent Brunner is director of Château de Versailles Spectacles. He has developed the company significantly in the last ten years, increasing the number of paying visitors by 100% with 1.600.000 tickets in 2016, reopening the Opera Royal, which has been offering a season of around 80 performances every year since 2009 and producing the major Versailles contemporary art exhibitions: from Jeff Koons in 2008 to Olafur Eliasson in 2016.
The musical season offers concerts and operas with stars of classical music (Cecilia Bartoli, Philippe Jaroussky, Jordi Savall, John Eliot Gardiner, Raphael Pichon, William Christie….) in the most prestigious venues of the chateau: the Opera Royal, the Chapel and Hall of Mirrors.
Château de Versailles de Spectacles today is a company with an annual budget of 16M€ which receives no subsidies from the government. It has 30 permanent employees and 400 summer season staff.
Born in Lorraine in the east of France, Laurent Brunner grew up in Verdun, a landmark city where history and the French-German axis are deeply rooted. He chose Strasbourg for his history and history of art studies. This is where he discovered ancient music and the opera and he launched a festival in Verdun in 1990. Its success led him to the organization of a full season in 1991 and ultimately to a merger with the Theatre Municipal, which became an official state supported stage in 1992.
In 1996, Laurent Brunner became director of the Scène Nationale de Forbach et de l’Est Mosellan (national stage of Forbach and East Moselle), covering 23 cities of the Lorraine coal basin, which he modernised and renamed Le Carreau (The Pithead). The Scène Nationale set up camp in a former pithead (Carreau Wendel in Petite Rosselle) to present shows and performances, strongly developing the offer of classic music in very diverse settings. He developed a project for Mission 2000 en France, with the renovation of an industrial building for the exhibition L’Aventure du travail (The Adventure of Work), coproduced by the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie (Paris) and the Centro de Cultura Contemporanea (Barcelona), with a budget of 3 million euros and 5 million euros renovation works. In 2002 he became also director of the Festival Perspectives in Saarbrücken (Germany).
In May 2002, he joined the cabinet of the French Minister for Culture Jean Jacques Aillagon, as the minister’s technical adviser for performing arts. He was then appointed Cultural Attaché to the French embassy in Berlin (Germany), before moving to Versailles.
Danele Borniquez
Daniele Borniquez got a diploma in Piano at the Conservatory A. Vivaldi in Novara and graduated in Economics at the University of Turin with a thesis in Industrial Law about piracy and plagiarism in the music industry. When he was very young, he started his career at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.
Borniquez worked as Coordinator of the Training Academy for Opera Singers founded by Riccardo Muti under the artistic direction of Leyla Gencer; in that role, he had the opportunity to work with famous artists such as Mirella Freni, Renato Bruson, Teresa Berganza, Shirley Verrett, Luciana Serra, Luis Alva, and Luciana D’Intino among others. His activity in the field of music training covers all the roles in the opera sector (assistant conductors, choir artists, children choirs, contemporary music ensembles and concertmasters). Besides his work as an organizer, Borniquez directs the production of all the artistic events related to the teaching activity including the Progetto Accademia del Teatro alla Scala.
In his capacity as the coordinator of European research projects, he helped write the book Formazione e occupazione nel mondo musicale, which has been presented in several meetings patronised by the European Union.
Borniquez has been a member of the jury in some major international opera competitions and he is the Secretary General of the Leyla Gencer Voice Competition in Istanbul.
Presently, he holds the office as the Head of the Department of Music at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala.
Georg Lang
After completing his baccalaureat at a high school in Vienna, Georg Lang studied business information systems at the University of Vienna and at the Technical University Vienna. During these studies he discovered his passion for event management and organised a number of sporting events. This lead him to Baden near Vienna, where he started working as secretary for the Badener Trabrennverein (Badener Trotting Races Association) in 1988. From 1999 until 2004, he functioned as manager of the summer trotting races. From 2003 until 2007 he worked in the management of Magna Racino.
In 1999, he founded the agency PARNASSUS ARTS PRODUCTIONS, which has been in operation in its present form since 2001. Its main activities consist of artist management, Baroque and opera productions, concert projects, tour planning as well as CD productions.
Georg Lang was the executive director for the award-winning productions Faramondo, Farnace, Artaserse, Alessandro, Venezia and Caffarelli, among others. Further productions with Georg Lang as executive director include Rokoko, Tamerlano and Siroe released in 2014, and The 5 Countertenors, Catone in Utica, Arie Napoletane, Adriano in Siria and Arminio in 2015.
Since 2009, Georg Lang through PARNASSUS ARTS PRODUCTIONS realised 35 Baroque productions and was instrumental in building the carriers of artists like Max Emanuel Cencic, Daniel Behle, George Petrou, Yuriy Mynenko, Franco Fagioli, and Armonia Atenea. In 2019, he founded the label PARNASSUS ARTS PRODUCTIONS.
Since 2020 he is working as artistic executive director and casting of the Bayreuth Baroque opera festival.
Dominik Licht
Dominik Licht serves as Director of Casting and Planning at the Salzburg Easter Festival as well a Casting Consultant of the Royal Danish Opera, where he holds the primary responsibility of casting singers and conductors. Previously, he was Head of Artistic Operations at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich as well as Head of Planning at the Komische Oper Berlin and additionally supervised the company’s esteemed young artist program.
Dominik Licht has been on the jury of competitions such as the Queen Sonja Singing Competition, the International Stanisław Moniuszko Vocal Competition, the Karol Szymanowski International Music Competition as well as the Premiere Opera Foundation International Vocal Competition among others.
Dominik Licht is a native of Munich, Germany and completed his studies in music (voice) at the McGill University in Montreal.
Cristiano Sandri
Cristiano Sandri was born in Verona in 1974. He graduated in Law at the University of Trento in 1998 and became a qualified lawyer.
He studied piano and flute in Verona.
In September 2008, he was appointed Casting Manager of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
In this capacity, he established relationships with the greatest international artists including Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti, Semyon Bychkov, Laurent Pelly, Robert Carsen, Graham Vick, William Friedkin, Ferzan Ozpetek, La Fura dels Baus, Dante Ferretti and Michael Curry, as well as with some of the most renown soloists, and finally with Zubin Mehta, Main Conductor, with whom Sandri built solid cooperation especially in making casting choices.
In January 2012, Cristiano Sandri became the Artistic Secretary of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
In May 2015, he was appointed Consultant of the 2016-2018 Artistic Programme of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari.
In September 2015, he served as Casting Advisor at the Teatro Regio di Parma and in January 2017 he was entrusted with the management of the Artistic Programme at the same theatre.
Cristiano Sandri organises the “Voci Verdiane” Voice Competition in Busseto besides being a member of the jury and dealing with the video pre-selection of the candidates to be admitted to the preliminary phases of the Competition.
From 2017 to 2022 he was in charge of the new “Accademia Verdiana”: a programme for young artists dedicated to Verdi’s repertoire developed at the Teatro Regio.
In 2021 and 2022, he was the Artistic Director of the White Voices Choir School of the Teatro Regio di Parma, where he trained for the first time the white voices for the theatre.
Since January 2023, Sandri has been the Artistic Director of the Teatro Regio di Torino.
The Italian Music Critic Association gave him two Abbiati Awards: one for the best show and a special award for the shows produced under his Artistic Direction during seasons 2023/2024 and 2024/2025.
Sebastian F. Schwarz
Sebastian F. Schwarz is an Austrian-German born musician, teacher and artistic director. In Italy, he has been the Artistic Director of the Festival della Valle d’Itria and of the Accademia del Belcanto “Rodolfo Celletti”, as well as the Superintendent and Artistic Director of the Teatro Regio di Torino. Previously, he had assumed primarily important roles as General and Artistic Director of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Deputy Director of the Theater an der Wien and Artistic Director of the Vienna Kammeroper.
Schwarz held many other management positions at the Wexford Festival Opera and as an assistant opera director at the Staatsoper in Hamburg.
He was the co-founder and artistic director of the Pietro Antonio Cesti International Voice Competition for Baroque Opera at the Early Music Festival in Innsbruck. He is a regular member or the president of the jury at important international voice competitions. He was also the founder and the opening president of the jury of the Glyndebourne Opera Cup in 2018.
Schwarz is the vice president of the Richard Strauss International Society and a member of the board of directors of EMA (European Academy of Musical Theatre).
At present, he is working on the new OperaVision podcast for Opera Europa, which will be broadcast in September 2025 to introduce the European world of opera from its origins until today.
In 2015, Sebastian F. Schwarz was awarded the title of Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia for his role in spreading and supporting Italian art and artists.
Eva-Maria Sens
Eva-Maria Sens has been appointed as Artistic Director of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music in 2023 alongside the Musical Director Ottavio Dantone. From an early age, music in many different colours was one of the most important aspects of her life. She studied German Literature and Medieval and Modern History in Freiburg im Breisgau.
After years of traveling through the cultural landscape, the focus in Innsbruck is now on being an enabler for artists and music lovers, ensuring quality at the highest level within an unique atmosphere, creating the stage for early music and historically informed performance practice, its tradition and developments and thus making the golden lustre of the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music shine.