Nick Schlieper has designed lighting for all of the major performing companies in Australia and works regularly in Europe and the U.S.

Recent engagements include Nick's debut at, and return to, the prestigious Salzburg Festival, designing the lighting for Aribert Reiman's Lear in the Felsen Reitschule, and for Cherubini's Medeé; as well as Mosquitos, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Real Thing, Still Point Turning, Harp in the South, A Cheery Soul, The Resistable Rise of Arturo UI, Chimerica, Three Sisters, All My Sons, Speed the Plow, A Flea in Her Ear and Switzerland for Sydney Theatre Company; Macbeth, Twelfth Night and Photograph 51 (also set design) for Melbourne Theatre Company; Packer and Sons, Ghosts and Twelfth Nightfor Company B Belvoir.

Nick also returned to the National Theatre of Norway for Private Confessions, directed by Liv Ullman, and to New Zealand Opera for The Elixir of Love. He also lit Sydney Theatre Company's revival of The Present with Cate Blanchett on Broadway, and The Space Between the Notes (Emma Matthews' one woman show).

Nick's work in Music Theatre includes First Wives Club The Musical at the Oriental Theatre, Chicago, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Musical in Australia, New York, Toronto, London, Sao Paolo and throughout Europe; Love Never Dies in Hamburg, Tokyo, Sydney and Melbourne for The Really Useful Company.

His extensive work in opera in Australia includes Don Giovanni, Nabucco, Tannhäuser, Il Trovatore, L'elisir d'amore, Andrea Chenier, Freischütz, Falstaff and Seraglio for Opera Australia; Salome (and set design) and Parsifal for State Opera of South Australia; Flying Dutchman, Don Giovanni, and Ken Russell's Madam Butterfly for Victorian State Opera; Macbeth (and set design) for Opera New Zealand and Don Giovanni (and set design) for Opera Queensland. He was also lighting and associate set designer of the first Australian production of Wagner's Ring Cycle in Adelaide in 2004.

Nick has also designed lighting for Scheherazade for the Australian Ballet, the acclaimed Cinderella for Royal New Zealand Ballet, and several pieces for Bangarra Dance Company, including Bush, Bennelong and Patyegarang.

The year commences for Nick with lighting designs for productions of Wudjang: Not the Past (Bangarra Dance), North By Northwest (Kay & McLean Productions) and The Phantom of the Opera (Opera Australia) on Sydney Harbour. With such a full schedule it was a treat for STAGES to examine the art of Lighting Design with one of the country's most prolific and eloquent artists; Nick Schlieper.

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