Gottfried Pilz once confessed that his work was not about decoration, but about making visible what was behind a wall, what lay beyond the boundaries. And each of the stage sets that Pilz created during the course of his long career does indeed reflect this examination of the essence and message of the underlying work: whether he was giving the action a specific location, as in his design for the Berlin production of Meyerbeer's THE HUGENOTS, which he set in a landscape of war-torn Berlin in 1987, or whether he created one of those more abstract, sparsely furnished spaces, defined by changes in light and colour, as for his Berlin productions of Poulenc's DIALOGUES DES CARMÉLITES or Enescu's OEDIPE. With his aim of making the essence of great works of musical theatre visible and present, the Salzburg-born director soon became a partner to a generation of directors who had set themselves the same goal: John Dew, for example, with whom he worked continuously from 1980 to 1990 and who also brought him to the Deutsche Oper Berlin for LES HUGENOTS and Gounod's FAUST. Pilz had got to know the theatre early on, in the early seventies, as assistant to Filippo Sanjust and as designer for several productions (including the 1971 premiere of Aribert Reimann's chamber opera MELUSINE), but now he became – alongside his colleague Peter Sykora – the set designer who was to have the most lasting influence on the aesthetics of the Götz Friedrich era. Gottfried Pilz was to work with Götz Friedrich himself until the latter's death, and was responsible, among others, for productions such as DER ROSENKAVALIER, UN BALLO IN MASCHERA, BORIS GODUNOW and, in December 2000, the last Friedrich premiere, Menotti's children's opera AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS. The intellectual rigour and holistic thinking that Pilz brought to his work inevitably led him – almost always in collaboration with his wife Isabel Ines Glathar – to also conceive of costume design as an integral part of his work. 18 productions are ultimately associated with Pilz at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, in addition to his collaboration with Friedrich and Dew, his work with Günter Krämer (DIALOGUES DES CARMÉLITES, AUFSTIEG UND FALL DER STADT MAHAGONNY) is particularly noteworthy. Just two weeks ago, Pilz was in his adopted home of Berlin for an event in honour of his eightieth birthday, at which a book about him and his work was presented (Kerstin Schröder (ed.): Gottfried Pilz. Bühne Kostüm Regie, Verlag Theater der Zeit). Last Thursday, he passed away unexpectedly.

The Deutsche Oper Berlin mourns the loss of one of the greats in his field and will honour his memory and his work.