I work closely with directors, costume designers, producers, and actors/singers/dancers to conceptualize and define the desired look for each character.
Based on this, my team and I must be able to apply various makeup and hair techniques to achieve the desired look.
I handle the budget and personnel management of the makeup artist team.
In doing so, I ensure that resources and budget are used effectively and I monitor the team’s quality and working hours.
Additionally, I ensure compliance with safety regulations and hygiene standards for the use of makeup products.
Makeup artists and performers must have good personal chemistry. The right team composition enhances the preparation and application of makeup and hair.
From the artistic concept to the final implementation, I create masks and prosthetic pieces, perfectly tailored to the respective requirements.
I design and create makeup and hairstyle designs that emphasize the character’s personality and features and achieve the best possible effect, especially on stage.
With extensive knowledge of styles and implementation methods, I design and create perfectly matched wigs and hairpieces.
As head of make-up for AIDA: The Arena Opera Spectacle, I have been part of an extraordinary overall work of art from the very beginning. What we have created here is far more than an opera production. It is a sensory experience, an immersion into ancient Egypt with all its visual power, drama and beauty.
Even before the large Hanseatic Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Ellis Ingram, strikes the first notes, the audience’s journey begins, and for my team and me, often many hours earlier. The audience enters the arena and appears to be standing at the foot of an Egyptian temple. They smell lotus, spices, pine resin and the water of the Nile, an atmosphere that we also capture in the make-up concept with great attention to detail.
The entire arena is our stage. Performers appear from all directions, moving right through the audience. A particular challenge for the make-up department – every hairstyle, every make-up must not only work from a distance, but also withstand close scrutiny: sweat, wind, strong stage lighting, quick costume changes.
Radames’ aria is sung in the middle of the audience, exactly where no make-up artists can spontaneously intervene.
Soldiers, priests, court – up to 250 participants on a stage measuring 800 square meters. My job is not only to create authentic and distinctive looks, but also to create a make-up system that works in this dimension: efficient, reliable and artistically convincing.
And then there are these special moments: when Aida and Radames – two figures in the midst of a monumental spectacle – suddenly bring everything to a standstill with their love. In these moments, fireworks, video walls and temple backdrops almost disappear behind a look, a song, a tear – and I know: our work has helped to make this magic possible.
