Sigrid Neef


Sigrid Neef is a German musicologist and theatre scholar, focused on Russian and Soviet opera. She has been a dramaturge of the director Ruth Berghaus at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin for decades.

Life

Born in Fraureuth, Neef worked at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin from 1972 to 1993. Like her husband, the musicologist Hermann Neef, she is an expert on Russian and Soviet music, with personal contact to Alfred Schnittke, Rodion Shchedrin, the Dmitri Shostakovich biographer Solomon Wolkow and the director-in-chief of the Bolshoi Theatre, Boris Pokrovsky. Since 1979, Neef has been the long-standing dramaturge of the director Ruth Berghaus, especially for opera.
Neef has translated numerous Russian and Hungarian operas, for example Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila together with Jörg Leipold, and works by Shostakovich, Shchedrin, Kyrill Vokov, Gleb Sedelnikov, Igor Rogaljov, Gennady Banshchikov, and Sándor Balassa.
Later, Neef focused on the field of animal protection, especially of cats.

Publications

Articles, book contributions
In Russian language
Radio broadcasts to and with Ruth Berghaus