Klaus Peter Kehr

Klaus-Peter Kehr has left his mark on the world of music theatre in Germany through his work as an opera dramaturge, opera-house director and festival administrator. From 2005 to 2013 he was director of opera at the Mannheim National Theatre and the company’s opera intendant from 2013 to 2016. During his time in the city he founded the Mannheim Mozart Summer Festival. Under his intendancy the theatre was repeatedly honoured: in 2013 it won second place in a poll of critics undertaken by Opernwelt magazine and in 2015 was voted Opera House of the Year. In three successive years it won the award for World Premiere of the Year and in 2014 its chorus was voted Chorus of the Year.

After studying in Vienna, Klaus-Peter Kehr worked principally as a dramaturge, beginning his artistic association with the director Achim Freyer at the Cologne Opera in 1971. It is an association that has lasted until the present day and that includes a trilogy of works by Philip Glass at the Stuttgart State Opera that proved to be a milestone in German operatic history: Satyagraha in 1981, Akhnaten in 1984 and Einstein on the Beach in 1988.

In addition to his appointments at a series of leading German opera houses, Klaus-Peter Kehr was also responsible for the Vienna Festival’s music theatre programme from 1991 to 2002. From 1994 to 2008 he was artistic director of the Schwetzingen Festival. He has also taught at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, the University of Vienna and the University of the Arts in Berlin. Until 2005 he was also professor of dramaturgy at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen.