General Manager Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen

Michael Schulz studied opera direction at the Hamburg College of Music and Drama. After working at the Kassel Opera, he was director at the Aalto Theatre in Essen from 1997 to 2001, going on to spend six years at the Weimar Opera, beginning in the 2002/03 season.
In 1998 his staging of DIALOGUES DES CARMÉLITES brought him the prize for young directors from the then newly created Götz Friedrich Foundation in Berlin.

The venues at which he has worked as a guest director include the Komische Oper in Berlin, the Aalto-Theater in Essen, the operas of Bremen, Gelsenkirchen, Osnabrück and Neustrelitz, the International Opera Festival in Miskolc, the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg and the Festival of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. His repertoire comprises works like LEAR by Aribert Reimann, MANON LESCAUT, TOSCA, LA BOHÈME and IL TRITTICO by Puccini, DER ROSENKAVALIER, SALOME and CAPRICCIO by Strauss, Gounods FAUST, DIE TOTE STADT« by Korngold, ANDREA CHÉNIER by Giordano, Brittens A MIDSUMMER NIGHT´S DREAM, Gurlitts NANA, DIE FLEDERMAUS, HÄNSEL UND GRETEL, DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE, DER FREISCHÜTZ and Glucks ORFEO ED EURIDICE, DON CARLO, RIGOLETTO, NABUCCO and LA TRAVIATA by Giuseppe Verdi and Wagner´s DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG, PARSIFAL, TRISTAN UND ISOLDE and DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN.

The Wagner bicentenary year of 2013 saw Michael Schulz stage PARSIFAL at the Salzburg Easter Festival under the musical direction of Christian Thielemann, and this production received its Chinese first performance at the Polytheatre in Peking in October that year. At the Budapest Wagner Festival, Michael Schulz staged DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG. Both DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN (DER RING / Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar) and PARSIFAL have been released on DVD and received much prize.

Over and above his work as a director, Michael Schulz finds his key artistic interest at the Musiktheater im Revier (MiR) in Gelsenkirchen, where he has been general artistic director since 2008. It was at MiR in recent years that he staged Puccini’s LA BOHÈME, Johann Strauss’s DIE FLEDERMAUS, Richard Strauss’s DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN, Kurt Weill’s DREIGROSCHENOPER, Arrigo Boito’s MEFISTOFELE, Verdi’s LA TRAVIATA and RIGOLETTO, Janácek’s JENUFA, Britten’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT´S DREAM, Donizetti´s L´ELISIR D´AMORE, Wagner’s TRISTAN UND ISOLDE with Catherine Foster and Torsten Kerl, Wagner´s THE RHINEGOLD and Giuseppe Verdi´s LA FORZA DEL DESTINO in Gelsenkirchen. Other new productions were Antonio Smareglia’s LA FALENA at the Staatstheater in Braunschweig, Richard Strauss’s SALOME and L´ELISIR D´AMORE at the Semperoper in Dresden, Giordano´s ANDREA CHÉNIER at the Staatstheater Kassel and Strauss´ ELEKTRA at the Landestheater in Linz.

2020-06-01

Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen 2015

Staatstheater Kassel, Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen 2014
Operndramaturg Jürgen Otten im Gespräch mit Regisseur Michael Schulz