The Austrian-Italian conductor Guido Mancusi was born in Naples in 1966. Coming from a musical household, he received his first piano lessons from Nino Rota. After the death of his father, the family moved to Vienna. Mancusi became a soprano soloist with the Vienna Boys' Choir and attended the Vienna Musikgymnasium. After graduating from high school, Mancusi studied bassoon and singing at the Vienna Conservatory and composition and conducting at the Vienna Academy of Music. He completed his studies with distinction. His first engagements as conductor and choral director were at the Stadttheater Coburg (FRG), the Theater an der Wien, the Raimundtheater and the Stadttheater St. Pölten.To perfect his conducting training, he became assistant to Riccardo Muti at La Scala in Milan, assistant in Bayreuth and assistant to Adam Fischer. As a conductor, he made guest appearances in Graz and Kiel, and finally attracted the attention of the artistic director Dietmar Pflegerl in Klagenfurt with "Madame Butterfly", who made the still young conductor chief conductor, which Mancusi remained for five years. There he expanded his repertoire and gained important experience in conducting. His successes in Klagenfurt also brought Mancusi greater international attention. In Vienna, Mancusi finally took over the position of chief conductor of the "Schönbrunn Fesitival Orchestra" and in this capacity founded the Schönbrunn Chamber Opera. In the following years, as his reputation grew, he was invited to conduct major tours in Moscow, Tel Aviv, Helsinki, Stockholm, Rome, Toronto, the USA, South America and finally Japan and South Korea. In his home country, he was engaged by Klangbogen Wien and the Wiener Festwochen.Eventually he was engaged as a permanent guest conductor at the Volksoper Wien, where he has been a permanent and important part of the house since 2014. In 2017 Mancusi received the appointment as Principal Guest Conductor of the BDZ Orchestra in Budapest and for 2018 that of Musical Director of the Seefestspiele Mörbisch. From the beginning of his life with music, Mancusi also composed. Today his repertoire of works includes masses, passions, cantatas, orchestral works, film scores, two operettas, a ballet and an opera. World premieres and CD recordings as well as commissioned works prove Mancusi's firm place in the cosmos of contemporary composers. Mancusi always saw himself as a theatre man, as a creator and facilitator of fantastic worlds. He understands the dichotomy of the word music - theatre as a unity. As a composer he creates dramatic works, as a conductor he is their advocate. An interwoven life that knows no pigeonholes. This is how he wants to live and how he can live. Composers and conductors want to give something to people - that is an ideal and Mancusi has been following this ideal for over 30 years.

LUISELLA GERMANO comes from Turin and studied at the conservatory of her hometown. Thanks to a scholarship from De Sono, she was accepted at the "Accademia Ducale di Alto Perfezionamento" in Genoa and at the "Accademia di Alto Perfezionamento in Fiesole", where she perfected herself as a chamber musician with the Trio di Milano and the Trio di Trieste.

In 2002 she won a scholarship from La Scala and went on to study musical rehearsal at La Scala. In 2003 she won a selection competition in this field at the Teatro Regio in Turin and worked at this opera house as a solo répétiteur until 2012.

She also worked as a solo repetiteur at the Opera in Frankfurt and Nice, at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, at the Théâtre La Monnaie in Brussels and at the Theater an der Wien.

In 2006 she won a RAI Symphony Orchestra audition for orchestral keyboard. From 2012 to 2020 she was principal répétiteur of the Vienna State Opera.

In 2016 and 2017 she also worked as a répétiteur and musical assistant at the Salzburg Festival.

In the course of her work she was able to collaborate with numerous renowned conductors (among them for example: S. Bychkov, J.L.Cobos, R.F. de Burgos, M.W. Chung,C. Eschenbach, R. Muti, G. Noseda, Z.Mehta, P.Steinberg, J. Tate).

Since 2016 she worked several times with M. Muti as répétiteur and "fortepiano accompanist" for the Mozart-Da Ponte Trilogy.

Since 2018 she is a lecturer at the MDW (Vienna) in the vocal department.

Born in South Africa, Leonard Prinsloo studied music and ballet at the universities of Pretoria and Johannesburg. 

He has worked as a stage manager, choreographer and freelance director at the Vienna State Opera, the Städtische Bühnen Augsburg, the Lehár Festival Bad Ischl, Bühne Baden and the Seefestspiele Mörbisch. 

Leonard Prinsloo is a lecturer at the Music and Art Private University of the City of Vienna and the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. 

His engagements as a director and choreographer have taken him to theatres and opera houses in Austria, Germany and South Africa. 

He has staged and choreographed countless operas, operettas and musicals and is distinguished above all by his involvement with contemporary music theatre and theatre.

He has staged many works from the second half of the 20th century, including DER JUNGE LORD, KASINO - EIN TANZSPIEL, FRANKENSTEIN, DANTONS TOD, SCHLAFES BRUDER, THE RAKES'S PROGRESS and many more.

Born in Vienna. Singing lessons with his father Otto Edelmann and at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. After graduating with a diploma, he makes his debut in the role of Herrufer in Wagner's Lohengrin at the Stadttheater Koblenz. In 5 seasons he sings more than 25 roles of the entire baritone repertoire. He also gives guest performances in Dortmund, Pforzheim, Mannheim, Trier, Saarbrücken and Krefeld. In 1989 he won the main prize, the Mozart Prize and 7 special prizes at the Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna.

From 1990 he is a member of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He makes his debut as Figaro in "Il barbiere di Seviglia". Other roles in Berlin include: Tsar Peter I, Papageno, Guglielmo, Conte Almaviva, Marcello, Wolfram, Melot, Valentin, Morales, Pluto, Herr Fluth, Father in "Hänsel und Gretel", Albert, Mercutio.

He has also been a frequent guest performer at the Volksoper Wien, Mörbischer Seefestspiele, Dresdner Semperoper, Theater am Gärtnerplatz München, Hamburger Staatsopeer, Wiener Staatsoper, Schwetzinger Festspiele, Komische Oper Berlin. Peter Edelmann has been a freelance singer since 2001 and lives in Vienna.

He has sung at the Stuttgart State Opera, Wiesbaden State Theatre, Karlsruhe State Theatre, Staatsoper unter den Linden Berlin, Zurich Opera, Bern City Theatre, Grand Théatre Genève, Graz Opera, Teatro San Carlo Napoli, Teatro la Fenice Venezia, Opéra Royale de Wallonie Liège, Antwerp, Gent, Thèatre de la Monnaie Brussels, Paris, Opéra National Nancy, Opéra Toulon, Théatre du Capitole Toulouse, Opera Festival Las Palmas, Festival San Sebastian, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, New Israeli Opera Tel Aviv, Washington Opera, Seattle Opera, San Diego Opera, Orlando Opera, Opera Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Festival Macau, Moscow, National Opera Prague. He is expanding his repertoire which includes over 75 roles with roles such as: Faninal, Orest, Onegin, Escamillo, Don Alfonso, Don Giovanni, Figaro, Leporello, King (The Wise), Gyges (King Kandaules).

He sings under conductors such as Christian Thielemann, Franz Welser-Möst, Lawrence Foster, Heinrich Hollreiser, Jiri Kout, Claude Schnitzler, Pinchas Steinberg, John Eliot Gardiner, Christopher Hogwood, Friedemann Layer, Alfred Eschwé, Niels Muus, Gabriele Ferro, Bruno Weil, Eliahu Inbal, Yuri Bashmet, Rudolf Nureyev. He works under the directors Götz Friedrich, Günther Krämer, Willi Decker, David Pountney, Jean-Claude Berutti, Jean-Louis Martinotty, Klaus Michael Grüber, Hellmuth Matiasek, Lotfi Mansouri, Phillip Himmelmann, Mario Pontiggia, Robert Herzl. In addition to opera, Peter Edelmann devotes himself to concert and lieder singing. He has given concerts at the Newport Music Festival (USA), the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, Wiener Musikverein, Wiener Konzerthaus, Liederhalle Stuttgart, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Berliner Konzerthaus, Teatro Espanol Madrid, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Schubertiade Roskilde, National Gallery Washington DC, Tchaikovsky Hall Moscow, Walt Disney Hall Los Angeles.

In 2005 he founded the OTTO EDELMANN SOCIETY with his wife Sylvia Saavedra Edelmann. Its mission is to help young singers who have completed their studies to find their way into the professional world. In addition to sponsorship concerts, an audition workshop is held every year. So far, more than 50 singers have taken part in this programme.

Numerous CDs and videos have been released with Peter Edelmann. He has repeatedly appeared on TV and participated in live TV broadcasts.

Since 2010 Peter Edelmann has been a professor at the Institute for Singing and Music Theatre at the mdw and from 2014 to September 2017 he was head of the institute.

From 2017 to 2022 Peter Edelmann was artistic director of the Seefestspiele Mörbisch.

Anna Sushon studied orchestral conducting in Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music and Dance and later in Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts. Since 1996 she lives and works in Vienna. Here she is mostly known as the musical assistent and principal vocal coach of Neue Oper Wien (since 1998). With this theater group she produced more than 70 operas composed in 20 and 21 century. She also coaches russian repertoir at the Vienna State Opera, has participated in productions of Theater an der Wien, Vienniese Chamber Opera, at the festivals in Bregenz, Grafenegg, Carinthia and Wiener Festwochen. Anna Sushon has accompanied recitales of diverse soloists in Vienna, Madrid, Berlin, Jerusalem, Moscow, Stuttgart, New York and Tel-Aviv, and conducted concerts and operas in Vienna, Erfurt, Salzburg, Rochester, Zagreb and Stockholm.

In 2006, she and her husband founded the OTTOEDELMANNSOCIETY, the Vienna-based organisation for the promotion of young singers, to which he selflessly committed himself and with which he conducted countless audition courses in Vienna, Las Palmas, Seoul , Jerusalem and Riga. The same audition course gave rise to the OTTOEDELMANNSOCIETY PUBLIC AWARD, which later became the INTERNATIONAL OTTO EDELMANN SINGING COMPETITION of MUSIK UND DARSTELLENDE KUNST, Vienna, of which there have already been 6 editions and for which he is still completely unselfishly in charge of public relations. As a career advisor she has taught audition training in ISA-MDW from 2018 to 2021, in Seoul, Riga, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and for various online events in the time of the Covid Pandemic in different universities and conservatories. She is regularly invited as a coach for The Summer Music Festival, opera workshop in Vienna for American students in summer.

In 2015 she founded the opera workshop PLUSOPERA www.plusopera.com which, funded by the OTTOEDELMANNSOCIETY, has produced 12 opera, operetta and musical titles in various Viennese theatres, in Gran Canaria and at the Long Night of the Church in Vienna. Nov. 2022 she produced Orfeo ed Euridice at the Festival Antqiva, in Teatro Perez Galdos, in Spain.

Between 2019 and 2021 she was the volunteer coordinator of the ISA-MÖRBISCH Operetta Workshop. In 2019 she was production assistant of the Seefestspiele Mörbisch in Daegu, Korea, "The Merry Widow".

Co-owner and co-founder of MEA Music Education Abroad, talent scout agency in China-Austria. www.music-education-abroad, www.music-education- abroad-china