Christoph Meyer (Intendant)

Christoph Meyer (born February 26, 1960 in Lüneburg ) is a German director and theater director. Since the 2009/10 season he has been general manager of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Duisburg .

Life

During his studies in Munich , Christoph Meyer worked as an assistant director on various German theaters. For his first permanent engagement he went to the Nationaltheater Mannheim in 1985 . From 1990 to 1995 Meyer worked as a game director and from 1993 as chief dispatcher at the Cologne Opera . From 1995 he worked as artistic production director at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. In June 2000 Meyer went to the Deutsche Oper Berlin as general secretary .

In the years 2001 to 2003 Meyer fulfilled various artistic consulting contracts, including a. for the Festival Internacional de Música y Danza in Granada and the Fundación de Cultura “La Caixa”, Barcelona . From 2004 to 2006 he was the opera director of the Basel Theater . From January 2007, Meyer was in the same position in the management of the Leipzig Opera , before Christoph Meyer was appointed General Director of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein for the 2009/10 season . He won Axel Kober as general music director and Martin Schläpfer as ballet director and chief choreographer for the newly founded Ballett am Rhein. As a director for new productions a. a. Immo Karaman , Tatjana Gürbaca , Claus Guth , Michael Hampe , Stefan Herheim and Dietrich W. Hilsdorf to his house. In 2013 he withdrew as director of a Tannhäuser production by director Burkhard C. Kosminski after the premiere. This decision was criticized by the director (“It can't be that this kind of censorship is taking place”) and the Akademie der Künste as excessive.

Meyer's particular commitment is the program for young audiences. He initiated a cooperation between the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Dortmund Opera and the Bonn Theater under the title “Junge Oper Rhein-Ruhr”, which began at the beginning of the 2013/14 season. This project, which is unique in Germany, aims to inspire children and young people for exciting musical theater by composing works especially for them. After Vom Mädchen who did not want to sleep ( Martin Baltscheit , Marius Felix Lange ) and Ronja the robber's daughter ( Holger Potocki , Jörn Arnecke ), Marius Felix Lange's family opera Die Schneekönigin was the third commissioned opera in 2015/16 , which was performed in Düsseldorf, Duisburg and is shown to the other two cooperation cities.

In response to the discussions about Düsseldorf's cultural landscape, Christoph Meyer wrote in a guest article in the Rheinische Post on November 22, 2016 : “Düsseldorf has succeeded in bringing a sporting event to the city with the Grand Départ. Düsseldorf keeps thinking about competing for the Olympic Games together with the Ruhr area - how about Düsseldorf striving to appear on the long list of European capitals of culture? Düsseldorf has an incredibly lively, multi-layered and rich art and culture scene that is unparalleled in many areas! "

Jury activity

Christoph Meyer has been a member of the jury for the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition in Vienna since 2001. He was also a juror at the Competizione dell 'Opera competition in Dresden, the Bidu Sayão competition in Brazil and the Competizione dell'Opera Moscow. The New Voices Bertelsmann competition (Gütersloh) and the Seoul International Music Competition. He is a member of the Chambre Professionnelle Des Directeurs D'Opéra (CPDO, Paris) and is a member of the Presidium of the State Music Council of North Rhine-Westphalia .

Others

In April 2011, the Robert Schumann University of Düsseldorf awarded Christoph Meyer an honorary professorship. In December, the Gheorghe Dima University of Applied Sciences in Cluj, Romania, recognized Meyer's commitment to promoting young talented singers by awarding them an honorary doctorate.