Barrie Kosky

Barrie Kosky, born in Melbourne, turned to directing after training in piano and music history. From 1990 to 1997 he was Artistic Director of the Gilgul Theatre Company, and in 1996 he took over as Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival. From 2001 to 2005 he was co-director of the Vienna Schauspielhaus, where he also presented a large number of directorial works and became a sought-after opera director at major opera houses in the German-speaking world. In 2009 he was awarded the Faust Prize for Best Director (Janáček "From a House of the Dead", Hanover State Opera). From 2012, Barrie Kosky was artistic director and chief director of the Komische Oper Berlin for 10 years, which, among other things, was voted Opera House of the Year 2013 in the critics' survey by Opernwelt magazine. In 2016, he was named Director of the Year in the same survey and received the International Opera Award for Director of the Year in 2014. In the course of his career, Barrie Kosky's engagements as an opera director have taken him to the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Glyndebourne Festival, Oper Frankfurt, Opera Australia, Dutch National Opera, Zurich Opera House, Royal Opera House and the Bayreuth Festival, among others. Since 2022, Barrie Kosky has been the in-house director of the Komische Oper Berlin, where he will direct two productions per year for five seasons. His work there includes Mozart's "The Magic Flute", performances of which are shown worldwide and, like Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underworld", can also be seen at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein.