Matthew Wild

Matthew Wild
Born	South Africa
Education	University of Cape Town
Occupations	Stage director Theatre manager
Organization	Cape Town Opera

Not to be confused with Matthew Wilder.

Matthew Wild (born 17 January 1980) is a South African theatre director and stage director, especially of opera. He was artistic director of the Cape Town Opera from 2015 to 2021. Wild worked internationally, directing Boesmans's Julie at NorrlandsOperan and the Malmö Opera in 2009, the world premiere of Philip Miller's Between a Rock and a Hard Place at the Royal Swedish Opera in 2013, Janáček's Káťa Kabanová at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden in 2016, Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at the Theater an der Wien in 2019, and Wagner's Tannhäuser at the Oper Frankfurt in 2024.

Career

Born in South Africa, Wild studied drama and English studies at the University of Cape Town. His first direction was in 2000 a work he had written while still studying. He directed contemporary plays including Brent Palmer's Witnesses, John van der Ruit's Crooked, Dalliances by Pieter Jacobs, Brett Goldin's Bad Apple, Nhlanhla Mavundla's A Man and a Dog and Nicholas Spagnoletti's Special Thanks to Guests from Afar. He first directed a work by Shakespeare in 2012, staging The Comedy of Errors at the Maynardville Open-Air Theatre, earning him a Fleur du Cap nomination as best director.

His first opera production was Boesmans' Julie at NorrlandsOperan and the Malmö Opera in 2009. In 2013 he directed the world premiere of Philip Miller's Between a Rock and a Hard Place at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm in 2013. He directed his first musical in 2013, O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show at the Fugard Theatre, followed by Cabaret in 2015.

Wild was artistic director of the Cape Town Opera from 2015 to 2021. He staged there Handel's Alcina, Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, Don Giovanni and Die Zauberflöte, Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims, Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer, Salome by R. Strauss, Puccini's Suor Angelica, Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, and Menotti's The Medium.

Wild made his debut in Germany in 2016, directing Janáček's Káťa Kabanová at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden. His production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at the Theater an der Wien was nominated for 2022 Austrian Music Theatre prizes. He directed Humperdinck's Königskinder at the 2021 Tyrol Festival in Erl.

He directed Wagner's Tannhäuser at the Oper Frankfurt in 2024, conducted by Thomas Guggeis. Wild set the story in California in 1961. In his version, Tannhäuser became a fictive Heinrich Ofterdingen, an author who had left Nazi Germany and subsequently became a professor of literature and a Pulitzer Prize recipient. After going missing in a creative crisis, he is celebrated on returning; he then comes out as gay kissing a young man in the lecture theatre, causing audience members to destroy the books he had just signed; only Elisabeth collects his notes to publish them. The director borrowed Ofterdingen's name from Heinrich von Ofterdingen, a minnesanger who was a model for Tannhäuser; and was inspired to make Ofterdingen gay by the fact that the opera was a favourite with gay men such as Wagner's patron Ludwig II of Bavaria, Wagner's son Siegfried, and Oscar Wilde. The story is also related to German emigrants to California including Thomas Mann, whose figure Tadzio from Death in Venice was quoted. The production was chosen as a "staging of the year" by the critics of Opernwelt.

External links

• Cohen, Robyn: Opera interview: Matthew Wild talks about Cape Town Opera 2021 season thecaperobyn.co.za 26 March 2021
• Trailer zu "Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg" von Richard Wagner / Oper Frankfurt on YouTube