Born in Timișoara, HELMUT STÜRMER studied at the Nicolae Grigorescu Academy of the Arts in Bucharest. There he worked as a stage designer at the Teatrul Bulandra from 1968 to 1977. Further positions followed in Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Leipzig, as well as at the Vienna Festival, the Vienna Burgtheater and the opera houses in Basel, Karlsruhe and Nuremberg. Helmut Stürmer’s other works include the sets for Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters at the Théâtre de l’Union in Limoges, Euripides’ The Bacchae at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Aeschylus’ Oresteia at the Norske Teatret Oslo, Sergei Rachmaninov’s operas Francesca da Rimini and Aleko at the Teatro Colòn in Buenos Aires and Artaserse by Leonardo Vinci at the Opéra National de Lorraine and the Opéra Royal de Versailles.