Lois Lammerhuber honored with special prize for achievements in music theater for his photography of the Vienna State Opera, published in 14 books (EDITION LAMMERHUBER)
On Sunday, 1 September 2024, the best artists of the year were honored in 15 categories as well as with eight special prizes as part of a gala matinee at Volksoper Vienna.
The Austrian Music Theater Prize awards ceremony was complete with glamorous Hollywood flair on the red carpet as well as international stars including Asmik Grigorian, Erica Eloff, Philipp Hochmair, Michael Volle or Rolando Villazón. Lois Lammerhuber was awarded the special prize for achievements in music theater for his work at the Vienna State Opera. After all, his work has resulted in 14 books.
The laudatory speech was held by Andreas Walk, Lammerhuber’s writing partner in many of his works: ‘A picture is worth a thousand words. If this quote were to apply to a single person, then Lois Lammerhuber would be the first to come to mind. His approach to music theater provides a visual overview of one of the largest and most important opera houses in the world.
While making his acceptance speech, Lammerhuber explained why he believes he has been honored with the prize: ‘Photography is there to make the visible even more visible, and to make discoveries where everything already appears to be known. This idea first put into words by Hungarian photo artist Laszlo Moholy Nagy has been inscribed into my heart since I began living and breathing photography.
Anyone who, like me, has had the privilege of walking into the Vienna Opera through the dividing wall of the little stage door for 14 years, has certainly come to a very special place. A magical world of creativity in which each year I was permitted to make a book. Dominique Meyer, Director of the Vienna State Opera for many years, referred to it as, ’a kind of encyclopaedia about theater with the Vienna State Opera as a case study’. In other words: we showed everything you can’t see simply by buying a ticket.
14 years, 14 books: from the chorus, to the costume workshops, and even the ballet. Each had a very special theme, but three were even more unique:
CREATION – about The Nibelungen Ring for children by Matthias von Stegmann – in other words, Wagner’s entire Ring in only one hour!
CLOSE-UP – a book with a collection of premieres from the Ioan Holender era with comments by Holender. Amazing anecdotes about everything that could possibly go wrong. But every once and a while, everything indeed worked out quite well.
GENESIS – the process behind the scenes of a new world premiere production.
And the best part: if you would like to purchase these excellent books, you have the unique opportunity when buying two books to receive a third absolutely free of charge. Simply order two books by clicking the desired titles in the Edition Lammerhuber online shop – and then send an email with the title of the third book to edition@lammerhuber.at.
2007: METAMORPHOSEN - The Metamorphosis of the Vienna State Opera into a Ballroom
2008: CREATION - Wagner’s Nibelungen Ring for Children
2009: THE VIENNA STATE OPERA - A Musical and Architectural Treasure
2010: IOAN HOLENDER - CLOSE-UP - 118 Premieres
2011: PASSION - The Vienna State Opera Orchestra - The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
2012: [E]MOTION - The Vienna State Ballet Backstage
2013: GLAMOUR - The Magical World of Costumes
2014: ON STAGE - Gigantic Stage Technology & the Opera - Purely Magical
2015: HARMONY - Ensemble 2014/2015
2016: GENESIS - Behind the Scenes of a New Production: Gaetano Donizetti’s ‘Don Pasquale’
2017: CHORUS - The Vienna State Opera Chorus
2018: REPERTOIRE - The World’s Largest Repertoire
2019: BEL CANTO - An Homage for the 150th Anniversary with 150 Singers
2020: SYNTHESIS OF THE ARTS - 100 Images from Backstage
About EDITION LAMMERHUBER
IT’S ALL ABOUT PASSION ...
Dear fans of beautiful and sophisticated books,
“An extraordinary publisher, dedicated to little known themes, who presents them with courage and high quality, without descending into stereotypes.” This is how the jury of the FEP European Book Prize of the Year Awards argued their choice of Edition Lammerhuber for Best Publisher 2017, an accolade also awarded to the publisher from Baden bei Wien in the preceding competitions in 2013 and 2015 of this biennial event.
Present on the book market for more than seven years, with a steadily growing programme, we have worked our way to the top – internationally. Your are best at what you love doing. And we love books, we love photography. The photobook is the ideal medium to combine these loves. Photography documents the world in a very particular way and shapes human memory like no other medium does. Our ambition is twofold: We want to publish books with fascinating themes from art and science, with excellent photography, sophisticated texts and brilliant authors, but, most of all, we want to make books that have something to say, books that transport important themes into the heart of society. For us, a book charged with emotional photography is a point of reference for communication that reverberates far beyond the number of sold copies. We believe that we can make a real impact with a book. For us, a book is not just a commodity but an incomparable cultural technique.
Edition Lammerhuber wants to be the publisher for writer-photographers, for whom seeing is a vocation and whose ways of seeing the world is a process of insights. A process they are capable of transforming into the immediacy of a photograph, a creative act, initiated and completed within seconds or split seconds. As in the motto of Hungarian photographic artist László Moholy-Nagy, who declared, “Photography is there to make the visible visible.” Edition Lammerhuber strives to be home to the best ‘cyclops’ of our time, legends and new talents alike.
And how does an Edition Lammerhuber book come about? The theme must be important to us, the photography captivate us, there must be something special, magical, in the pictures. Once a decision has been made to publish, the photographer visits us at our publishing house. We go through the photographic material, determine the format of the book, think about a setting to suit the theme. This is when the almost magical process of designing and layouting starts. It usually takes about a week for the concept to be completed to the point where the work of everyone involved can be browsed on-screen, then it passes on to the next steps in the production.
Our declared aim is to approach a perfect book through a passionate creative process. Craft aspects are an essential part of it and of our publishing philosophy. All production steps up to the printing are done in our house. Our own experts produce the prepress. We really care about the reproduction quality of the photographs, the feel of the printed papers and the quality of the binding. We check every single printing form.
So it is hardly surprising that some reviewers call the books of Edition Lammerhuber pieces of art emanating from a ‘book chamber of marvels’ and that nearly all titles gather awards, including those of the Art Directors Club New York, the Deutsche Fotobuchpreis, the Pictures of the Year International (POYI) Awards, USA, the Visa d’or, France, the FEP European Book Prize of the Year Awards or the World Press Photo. Today our books are available in more than 170 countries, usually published in two, sometimes three, languages.
Exceptional photography is not only found in the books of Edition Lammerhuber but also in a photo competition jointly initiated in Vienna in 2013 by Edition Lammerhuber and the Photographische Gesellschaft. Under the general heading What Does Peace Look Like? , the Alfred Fried Photography Award, worth 10 000 euros, chooses the peace image of the year. Participation in the award has exploded in recent years, confirming the status of photography as a medium for transporting essential socio-political themes. From 2017, a separate competition for the peace image of the year is open to children up to the age of 14.
At the biennial LUMIX Festival in Hannover, the Lammerhuber Photography Award for young photo journalists is presented, with a prize money of 5000 euros. Photography and the photobook are an essential, defining, medium for society and for our publishing house. This is why we believe it is important to encourage young photographic talent.
We would be honoured to see our books available from your bookshops and libraries.
Yours
Silvia Lammerhuber and Lois Lammerhuber
Publisher
GoSee : edition.lammerhuber.at
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