Cornelia Rainer
Born in 1982 in the Tyrol region of Austria, Cornelia Rainer studied theatre and music at the University of Vienna, at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, and at Paris 8, with professors like Georges Banu and Jean-Marc Pradier. Participating in internships and workshops throughout the world, she learnt among other things about the art of the Beijing Opera in Taipei. From 2005 to 2009, she was assistant director at the Burgtheater in Vienna, where she directed her first shows. She was then invited on national stages in Germany and Austria, among which the Thalia Theater Hamburg, the Bregenz Festival, or the Klagenfurt National Theatre. In 2012, she founded her own company, Theater Montagnes Russes, a reference to the scenography she came up with for her show Lenz, created for the Salzburg Festival. In 2014, she received the Outstanding Artist Award for her direction of Jeanne, an adaptation of the legend of Joan of Arc for young audiences. In 2017, she will present a new version of her adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet at the Burgtheater, called Hamelt, Ophelia une die anderen (Hamlet, Ophelia, and the others), which focuses on the points of view of the play's young protagonists.
