Biography
Philipp Himmelmann is one of Germany’s most distinguished opera directors, known for his visually striking and psychologically astute productions.Last season, he staged Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Bizet’s Carmen at Theater Lübeck, where he will return in 2026/27 to direct Idomeneo and Ariadne auf Naxos. More recent engagements have taken him to the Savonlinna Opera Festival for Aida, the Opéra de Rouen, Stadttheater Klagenfurt, and Opéra de Dijon for Simon Boccanegra, the Aalto-Theater Essen for Pique Dame, the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse for Die tote Stadt, the Perm Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Theatre for Le nozze di Figaro, the Staatstheater Braunschweig for Benjamin Godard’s Dante, the Opéra national de Lorraine for Káťa Kabanová, and the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden for Tosca, Don Giovanni, and Boito’s Mefistofele.
Elsewhere, he has directed L’elisir d’amore (Opernfestspiele St. Margarethen), Die Fledermaus (Theater an der Wien, Opéra national de Lorraine in Nancy), Don Giovanni and La bohème (Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Perm Tchaikovsky Opera), Der Zwerg and Die tote Stadt (Opéra national de Lorraine, Nantes Angers Opera), Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci (Staatstheater Hannover), Aida and Giulio Cesare (Deutsche Oper am Rhein), Don Carlos (Staatsoper Berlin), Cardillac and Macbeth (Semperoper Dresden), Manon Lescaut (Staatsoper Hamburg), Dido and Aeneas (Palau de les Arts Valencia), and Tosca at the Bregenzer Festspiele.
Philipp Himmelmann has collaborated with many of today’s leading conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Marco Armiliato, Teodor Currentzis, Thomas Hengelbrock, Michael Boder, Adam Fischer, Marcello Viotti, Fabio Luisi, Daniele Gatti, Christian Thielemann, Ulf Schirmer, Massimo Zanetti, and Reinhard Goebel. His productions have involved prestigious orchestras and ensembles such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Staatskapelle Berlin, Münchner Philharmoniker, Ensemble musicaAeterna, the Balthasar Neumann Ensembles, and the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Available on DVD are Tosca (Bregenzer Festspiele/Phoenix; Osterfestspiele Baden-Baden/Euroarts), Don Giovanni (Osterfestpiele Baden-Baden/SONY Classical), Mefistofele (Pfingstfestspiele Baden-Baden/Euroarts) and L’elisir d’amore (Opernfestspiele St Margarethen/???).
Philipp Himmelmann studied voice and opera staging at the University of Music and Drama in Hamburg, graduating with distinction. He is also an alumnus of the Guildhall School of Music in London. From 2014 to 2019, he was Professor for opera staging at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.
ANY PUBLIC USE OF THE ABOVE TEXT IS NOT PERMITTED WITHOUT SPECIFIC AUTHORIZATION OF SOREK ARTISTS MANAGEMENT.
single-artists.php