Friedrich Rom

Lighting designer Friedrich Rom was born in Vienna in 1956. After completing an apprenticeship in electrical engineering, he became a lighting master at the Theater in der Josefstadt, the Kammerspiele and the Theater im Rabenhof in Vienna, among others. This was followed by lighting designs at the Volksoper Vienna, the Burgtheater Vienna, the Vereinigte Bühnen Vienna, as well as the Vlaamse Opera Antwerpen, the Staatstheater Stuttgart, Opera National du Rhin and the Staatsoper Hamburg. From 1996 to 1999 he was head of lighting at the Volksoper Vienna. From 1996 to 2012, he regularly worked as a lighting and laser designer for the Mörbisch Lake Festival. In 1999 he became head of lighting at the Burgtheater Vienna. As part of the Styriarte, he was responsible for the overall technical management and lighting design for the production of “Carmen” in 2005 and “Idomeneo” in the Listhalle Graz in 2008. Guest productions have taken him to Japan, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium.
In 2005, Rom was nominated for the Nestroy Prize, although this prize had no categories for set or lighting design.
In 2002, he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival with Zemlinsky's rarely performed opera “Der König Kandaules”, directed by Christine Mielitz and staged by Alfred Hrdlicka. Friedrich Rom was also responsible for the lighting design in three major Andrea Breth productions in Salzburg: in 2007 for “Eugene Onegin” at the Grosses Festspielhaus, in 2008 and 2009 for Dostoyevsky's “Crime and Punishment” at the Landestheater, and in 2012 for Kleist's “Prince Frederick of Homburg” at the same venue. He also designed the lighting for Jürgen Flimm's production of Rossini's “Moïse et Pharaon” at the Großes Haus in 2009 and for Sven-Eric Bechtolf's “Don Giovanni” production at the Haus für Mozart in 2014. In 2015, he was engaged for the Salzburg experimental version of Brecht's “Threepenny Opera” at the Felsenreitschule, which was developed by Julian Crouch, Sven-Eric Bechtolf and Martin Lowe. Rom was also responsible for the lighting design of the Da Ponte cycle at the Salzburg Festival in 2015 and 2016 under the direction of Sven Eric Bechtolf.
In 2017, he created the lighting design for the play “Die Geburtstagsfeier”, directed by Andrea Breth at the Salzburg Festival. This was followed in 2018 by the lighting design for “Die Fledermaus” at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, in 2021 by the lighting design for Martin Kusej's production of “Maria Stuart” on the Perner Insel at the Salzburg Festival and in 2023 by Kusej's “Le nozze di Figaro” at the Haus für Mozart.
Since 2023, he has been responsible for lighting and lighting design at the Reichenau Festival.
The artist has held teaching positions for the directing class at the Max Reinhardt Seminar and for Erich Wonder's stage design master class at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.