Anisha Bondy, with roots in London, Vienna, Mallorca and Berlin, is a trained opera director and long-time theatre director at the Komische Oper Berlin. Through her scholarship from the Akademie Musiktheater Heute at the Deutsche Bank Foundation, she has been particularly involved in outreach programmes and has led various workshops at her opera house since 2014 for young people with migration and refugee histories in order to give everyone access to opera.
Since 2015, Anisha Bondy has intensified her work in the outreach sector and was the scenic director of ‘Selam Opera!’, the intercultural project of the Komische Oper Berlin, for seven years. There, together with Mustafa Akça and her team, she developed her own formats such as the ‘pop-up opera’ or the ‘opera dolmuş’ – derived from the Turkish term ‘shared taxi’ – and has been bringing opera to Berlin's neighbourhoods ever since. ‘Selam Opera!’ was honoured with the BKM Prize for Cultural Education 2017 – “On the trail of the guest worker route”. Mustafa Akça received the Federal Cross of the Order of Merit 2024 for his many years of commitment as a bridge builder through ‘Selam Opera!’. This is a great honour for the whole team.
Bondy is intensifying her work in new scenic concert formats, collaborating with renowned conductors such as Vladimir Jurowski. Her vision and innovative strength are reflected in projects such as the concert trilogy ‘Flucht’ (2019–20/ Komische Oper Berlin) or ‘Die Nacht vor Weihnachten’ (2022/ Philharmonie Berlin).
At the Philharmonie Luxembourg, she and Julia Hansen developed a fascinating, interactive spectacle musical with the renowned octet VOCES8 (2023) and premiered Frank Schwemmer's ‘Peter Pan’ (2024). A circus opera for the Philharmonie Luxembourg is in preparation for 2025.
With the Fondation EME, a wonderful new collaboration is beginning that combines many passions and focal points of their work in a new way.
