Elmar Ottenthal

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Elmar Ottenthal (born September 6, 1951 in Innsbruck ) is an Austrian theater director and theater director .

Live and act

After graduating from the Akademisches Gymnasium Innsbruck, Ottenthal initially trained as a photographer . He then studied musicology and art history at the University of Hamburg .

After a first job from 1974 to 1977 as assistant director and house director at the Lübeck Theater , he moved to the Hamburg State Opera , where he worked as evening director and assistant to Götz Friedrich . In 1982 Ottenthal took over the position of deputy head director under Lorin Maazel at the Vienna State Opera , before working as an independent director on various stages in Europe from 1986 to 1989. Furthermore, Ottenthal moved back to Vienna, where he was taken on at the United Theaters Vienna as deputy artistic director under Peter Weck . Finally, Ottenthal took over in 1992 as the successor toKlaus Schultz took the position of general manager at the Theater Aachen . At the same time he was given the leadership of the opera class at the Aachen department of the Cologne University of Music and Dance and appointed professor. After a subsequent activity from 1999 to 2001 as artistic director and managing director at the Theater des Westens in Berlin, Ottenthal is now again working as an independent director and producer. In addition, he was and is asked again and again to take over television or video direction for selected individual works. Since 2005, China has been the focus of his work, where he started to implement a theater joint venture in Beijing , received a teaching assignment and worked as a director in the production of TV series and TV films. Here he was also elected to the Advisory Board of the Association of North Asian Theaters .

Ottenthal broke new ground early on in order to modernize the classical and still largely conservative theater scene and to open it to a new audience. In addition to his work at the Vienna State Opera, he initially took on the direction of several world premieres of operas and drama pieces at the Hamburg-Altona “ Theater for Children ” that were specially adapted for children and young people . This path of modernization to the modern form of musical theater was continued during his time in Aachen, where he staged several modern musicals in addition to the standard seasonal repertoire . There were four world premieres in Aachen alone, of which the musical Gaudí by Eric Woolfson was one of the most successful. Outside Aachen, it was commercially exploited for many years in Alsdorf and Cologne - also under his direction - and was included in the ZDF program . The Cologne Musical Dome was built especially for this musical.

Ottenthal also continued his modernization style in Berlin's Theater des Westens and again premiered two musicals, of which Falco meets Amadeus , despite some criticism, also became a box-office hit and was then performed across Europe and recorded on video.

Ottenthal was married to the soprano Gertrud Ottenthal for a few years .

World premieres (selection)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ottenthal, Elmar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian director and theater manager
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH innsbruck