Mentor. Visionary. Friend
Erschienen in: Arbeitsbuch: Peter Carp – Weltempfänger in Luzern, Oberhausen und in Freiburg (04/2025)
I first met Peter Carp in 2014 at one of the monthly dinners at Schloss Solitude, hosted by Jean-Baptiste Joly, the residency’s former Artistic Director. These dinners brought former residency fellows – many of whom, like Peter, were now leading major cultural institutions – together with emerging artists. True to French tradition, Mr Joly arranged the seating, placing me directly across from Peter. That dinner began a journey that would shape my career in ways I could never have anticipated.
By that point I had performed at various international festivals, including the Wiener Festwochen, Holland Festival, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Theater der Welt, and the Paris Autumn Festival. But my engagement with German theatres was limited to a single invitation to the Schauspiel Köln in Cologne in 2006. During our conversation, Peter realised he had seen “Dance on Glasses” at Festwochen in Vienna. At that moment, he saw a spark in my work that he believed in, inviting me to visit his theatre in Oberhausen. I gladly accepted, and that visit remains etched in my memory.
Peter’s gift as an artistic director lies in his rare, innate ability to identify emerging talent and to recognise ambition and authenticity in young artists, even before...
