Herbert Gantschacher (born December 2, 1956) is an Austrian director, producer, and writer.
Education Gantschacher was born in Waiern, in Feldkirchen in Kärnten, Carinthia, Austria. In 1976 he graduated from the second gymnasium in Klagenfurt. From 1977 to 1980, he studied at the Academy for Music and Performing Arts in Graz (now the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz). He graduated with honors in 1980 and received an M.A. (Master of Arts) in 1988.
Artistic activities Gantschacher has worked for the Schauspielhaus in Graz; the Salzburg State Theatre; the Tyrolean State Theatre, Innsbruck; the Danube Festival in Krems; the Chamber Opera in Vienna; the Theater an der Winkelwiese in Zürich; the festival "Musica Iudaica" in Prague; the Kulturbrauerei in Berlin; the Polish festival "Theatre without Borders" in Szczecin; the National Theatre of Kosovo in Priština; the National Arts Centre in Ottawa; Concordia University in Montreal; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Museum of the Holocaust in Los Angeles; the festival "musica suprimata" in Sibiu (Hermannstadt) and Cluj-Napoca (Klausenburg) in Romania; the Felicja Blumental International Music Festival at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and the Singapore Arts Festival.
In Dresden, Gantschacher worked for the Staatsschauspiel, the kleine Szene of the Semperoper, the Dresdner Zentrum für zeitgenössische Musik, and the Festspielhaus Hellerau.
In Stockholm, he also worked for institutions such as the Kulturhuset and the Royal Swedish Opera (Kungliga Operan).
Gantschacher has also worked in Erfurt, Odesa, Saint Petersburg, Helsinki, and Bergen. In Bergen, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Bergen in the department of theatre research and at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and at the JAMD – Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where he gives masterclasses and lectures on the music of Viktor Ullmann, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Arnold Rosé, and Alma Rosé.
Gantschacher is currently the artistic director of VISUAL, the European and International Visual Theatre Festival, with deaf and hearing artists and deaf-blind artists in Vienna and Austria.
He is also the artistic director of the theatre and research project "War is daDa". For that research work, he created two projects entitled "Witness and Victim of the Apocalypse" (an exhibition and book about Viktor Ullmann in World War I and the influence of his wartime experiences on his music, especially on the opera The Emperor of Atlantis, or The Disobedience of Death; ARBOS, Vienna–Salzburg–Klagenfurt–Arnoldstein–Prora 2007/2008). A Czech translation of the book was published in Prague, and a Czech version of the exhibition was presented at the City Archives of Prague in the Clam-Gallas Palace in 2015. A Russian translation of the book was published in St. Petersburg, and a Russian version of the exhibition was presented at the Russian Museum in the city of Kingisepp and at the House of Composers in St. Petersburg in 2016. A Slovenian translation of the book was published in Nova Gorica, and a Slovenian version of the exhibition was presented at the museum Grad Kromberk of the Goriški muzej in Nova Gorica in 2018 and 2019.
Other activities From 1980 to 1981, Gantschacher was a lecturer at the Academy for Music and Performing Arts in Graz (today the University for Music and Performing Arts Graz) and also gave a seminar on the Faust writings of Goethe; one of his students was the theatre and opera director Martin Kušej. In 1999, Gantschacher was a lecturer at the Institute for Theatre Research of the University of Bergen in Norway. In 1999, 2000, and 2016, Gantschacher was a lecturer at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory "Rimsky-Korsakov" in Russia. In 2018, Gantschacher was the curator of the masterclass project School of Form, together with Zvi Semel at the JAMD – Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, about the composer and musician Viktor Ullmann and the one-armed war-disabled pianist Paul Wittgenstein, with masterclasses for voice (Therese Lindquist), violin and chamber music (Annelie Gahl), and composition in classical and jazz style (Wolfgang Pillinger).
Gantschacher has worked on numerous conferences as a lecturer and director: in Vienna at the International Conference "The Unifying Aspects of Culture" (2003); in Villach at "On the Eve of the Apocalypse" (2004); in Nötsch at "Art and War" (2005); in Villach at "The Great War – The Forgotten War" (2005), "The Great War – The Great Dying" (2006), "The Great War – The Last Victory" (2007), and "The Great War – Long Live the Republic!" (2008); and in Nötsch and Arnoldstein at "Art.War.Music", about music and the Great War. From 2014 to 2019, he was the curator of the international project "War=daDa" in Nötsch, Arnoldstein (Austria), Prague (Czech Republic), Kingisepp, Saint Petersburg (Russia), Kobarid, Bovec, Lepena (Slovenia), Cividale, Redipuglia, Spilimbergo, and Venice (Italy).
Due to his research work, Gantschacher reconstructed the Digital Wilhelm Jerusalem Archive in 2018, eighty years after its destruction by the Nazis, as part of the memorial year Austria 1918–2018, in digital form for the department of manuscripts at the national archive of the State of Israel in the national library at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Also in 2018, Gantschacher built the Digital Arnold Schönberg Archive in the House, Court, and State Archive of the National Archives in Vienna; there he assembled, for the first time, all preserved original documents about the composer Arnold Schönberg and his military service in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 as a digital archive and completed the biography of the composer Schönberg.
For the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF, Gantschacher has worked as a director for radio drama.
From 1994 to 1999, Gantschacher was a member of the Arts Council of the Government of Carinthia. From September 2013 to 2018, he was again a member of the Arts Council of Carinthia. From 2013 to 2014, he was also the chairman of the Council for Performing Arts of the Government of Carinthia. In 2018, he became the curator of the projects of the State of Carinthia for the memorial year "Austria 1918–2018" and the follow-up projects until 2023.
Since 2015, he has worked as a columnist for the Kleine Zeitung, one of the most important newspapers in Austria.
Awards Gantschacher has received several awards for his theatre work: Musictheatre Performance of the Year 1993 in the Czech Republic, for the production of the opera "The Emperor of Atlantis or The Disobedience of Death" by Viktor Ullmann Maecenas Prize 1994, for the project "Kar", music theatre in the mountains, in cooperation with the Verbund Company Maecenas Prize 2002, for the project "Theatretraps in the Underground of Vienna" European Label 2002, for innovative language projects Maecenas Prize 2003, for the project "Dada in Tramline 1 & Tramline 2" Nomination for the Bank Austria Art Prize 2012 Award from UNESCO for the Visual Theatre Library, for the "development of human rights for all", 2012Letter of The UNESCO October 22, 2012 Award by the Federal Minister Gabriele Heinisch-Hosek for the theatre project "Sense of Touch – Sense of Smell – Sense of Taste", about the culture and communication techniques of the deaf-blind, with deaf-blind students and five-sensed students, in 2014 Award by the Federal Minister Sonja Hammerschmid for the theatre project "Layers of History" Arteco Prize, for the project "Different Trains" (three operas on a moving train through Europe, at stations in Belgium, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Austria, dealing with the theme of deportation and death during the Holocaust) "Cerec Award" of the Financial Times Honorary Trustee of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance for his work on composers who perished in the Holocausthttps://www.academia.edu/143886058/Herbert_Gantschacher_Sabine_Kebir_Physisch_sind_wir_gesund_mental_nicht_
Works Publications Essays about theatre "Signer and Rossini – two brothers in spirit?" – 1992 "Crossing Borders" – 1993 "The new music theatre project KAR – a cooperation between industry and art" – 1994 "Music Theatre at the concentration camp of Terezín by the example of the composer Viktor Ullmann and its significance for our time" – 1994 "The Emperor of Atlantis – Lecture for CINARS 1994 in Montreal" – 1994 "About the Open Form of Theatrical Art of Theatre – Lecture about the new opera house in Linz" – 1996 "Memories and present, music and language, original and draft" – 1996 "Music, Theatre, Dance in Austria – Lecture for CINARS 1996 in Montreal" – 1996 "Art crossing Borders" – 1997 "For years, the mirror is imposed! About the correspondences of cultural behavior" – 1998 "The Art of Dialogue" – 1998 "Memory as a mirror of ideology" – 2000 "WorldWideWeb – Reality – Tool – Interaction" in: TRANS – Internet Magazine for Cultural Studies No. 9 – 2000 "That there is this attempt of political change in the world definitely" – 2004 "Victim myth Austria" – 2005 "The Rescue of to be forgotten! – The correspondence between the Austrian-Jewish philosopher Wilhelm Jerusalem and the American deaf-blind author Helen Keller" – 2009 "On Your Own – Laudation for the opera and theatre director Univ.-Prof. Mag. Martin Kušej, artistic director of the Austrian National Theatre Burgtheater, receiving the Prize for Culture of the State of Carinthia in the Republic of Austria", in German and Slovenian "The Archivist", laudation for Hubert Steiner, 2017 "Promoting Cultural Education", essay about the new school-youth-theatre project as a contribution of the State of Carinthia to the memorial year of the Republic of Austria "Austria 1918–2018", gift 1/2018, Vienna 2018, "Peace Education, School Education, Cultural Education", essay about the school-youth-theatre project "The Peace Education of the Individual and of the Society", Klagenfurt 2019Schule Jugend Theater arbos.at 2019 "Deafness and Deafblindness in the First World War", essay about Helen Keller, Wilhelm Jerusalem, Werner Mössler, Viktor Ullmann, and war-disabled deaf, blind, and deaf-blind persons (together with Gabriele Laube), Vienna 2019
Books "Crossing the Borders" – Das Zeichen 22/1992 – "Plurality instead of Uniformity (Klagenfurt on other tracks)" – Kärntner Druck und Verlagsgesellschaft 1996 – "Tracks to Victor Ullmann", with essays written by Viktor Ullmann, Herbert Thomas Mandl, Dževad Karahasan, Ingo Schultz, and Herbert Gantschacher, published by ARBOS – Company for Music and Theatre / (Vienna: edition selene 1998), "Forms of life" (a theatre book written by Herbert Gantschacher and Dževad Karahasan) – edition selene 1999 – "The Mirror of History – The Past as Ideology" (3rd Prora Conference) – Stiftung Neue Kultur Berlin 2000 Co-editor of "The Unifying Aspects of Cultures" – LIT 2004 – "I Carry the Flag or War = daDa" – Peter Lang Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften 2006 – , "Witness and Victim of the Apocalypse" (book for the exhibition about the composer Viktor Ullmann in World War I and the influence of his wartime experiences on his music, especially on the opera "The Emperor of Atlantis or The Disobedience of Death") – ARBOS, Vienna–Salzburg–Klagenfurt–Arnoldstein–Prora 2007/2008 "From the Austro-Hungarian Wehrmacht to the German Wehrmacht" – ARBOS, Vienna–Salzburg–Klagenfurt–Arnoldstein 2009 "Forward, Don't Forget!" in "Dirty Bucket K..." edited by FreiraumK, Drava Verlag-Založba Drava Klagenfurt/Celovec 2013,