Barrie Kosky

Barrie Kosky is one of the most internationally celebrated theatre and opera directors of our time. From 2012 to 2022 he was the Intendant of the Komische Oper Berlin. His eclectic and radical programming of operas, operettas and musicals won the company numerous prizes and international recognition. His production of Die Zauberflöte was seen in more than forty-five cities worldwide by nearly a million people.

Other important productions at the Komische Oper Berlin have included a trilogy of the three surviving Monteverdi operas, Eugene Onegin, Moses und Aron, Rusalka, Rigoletto, La bohème, Le Grand Macabre, The Bassarids, West Side Story, Semele, Fiddler on the Roof (Anatevka), La Cage aux folles, Castor et Pollux, Pelléas et Mélisande, Chicago, Candide,  Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Sweeney Todd and Akhnaten. His Berlin productions of jazz operettas of the Weimar Republic period were internationally acclaimed.

Kosky has also directed iconic productions for the Bavarian State Opera (Die schweigsame Frau, Agrippina, The Fiery Angel, Der Rosenkavalier, The Cunning Little Vixen and Die Fledermaus), the Salzburg Festival (Orphée aux enfers, Káťa Kabanová and the Vivaldi pasticcio Hotel Metamorphosis), Glyndebourne Festival (Saul, Dialogues des Carmélites), the Bayreuth Festival (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (Falstaff, The Golden Cockerel), the Vienna State Opera (a cycle of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas), the Zurich Opera House (La fanciulla del West, Die Gezeichneten, Macbeth, Boris Godunov, Die lustige Witwe, Manon Lescaut), the Paris Opéra (Prince Igor, Les Brigands), the Dutch National Opera (Armide, Tosca, Turandot, Il trittico) and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden (The Nose, Agrippina, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre).

He has also worked at the opera houses of Frankfurt, Los Angeles, Madrid, Barcelona, Oslo, Copenhagen, Strasbourg and Houston, and at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Since 2021, Kosky’s production of Die Dreigroschenoper for the Berliner Ensemble has been staged in Rome, Adelaide, Amsterdam, at the Edinburgh International Festival and in New York.

In the 2025/26 season, prior to his return to the Salzburg Festival for Il viaggio a Reims, Kosky has directed Christmas Eve at the Bavarian State Opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at the Komische Oper Berlin and Siegfried as the third part of his Ring cycle at Covent Garden. In summer 2026 he returns to the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence for Die Frau ohne Schatten.

Kosky’s awards include the 2012 Olivier Award for best opera production for Castor et Pollux at the English National Opera, the International Opera Award in 2014 and 2023 as Director of the Year, the 2015 Gold Iffland Medal from the Berlin Theatre Club and the 2016 Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Saul. In 2016 the magazine Opernwelt named him Director of the Year, and in 2018 his Bayreuth production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was named Production of the Year. His Salzburg production Hotel Metamorphosis received four awards at the 2026 Oper! Awards, including the award for best director. In 2020 he received a Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for his outstanding contribution to the Australian arts world. In 2022 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of Berlin, and in 2024 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.