Co-director, set and costume designer
Matthias Engelmann, born and raised in Vienna, Austria, studied German Literature at the University of Vienna, as well as Art Education and Painting in the masterclass of the Austrian painter Helga Philipp at the University of Applied Arts.
In 1999 he moved to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he studied Stage and Costume Design in the masterclass of the Austrian stage designer Erich Wonder, working as his assistant at the opera houses in Zurich, Stuttgart and at the Salzburg and Bayreuth Festival.
Living in Hamburg since 2003, Matthias Engelmann first worked at the Thalia-Theater and afterwards studied Opera Directing at the University of Music and Drama. During this time he collaborated with several theatre and opera directors like Peter Konwitschny, Stefan Herheim, Calixto Bieto and Christoph Nel and worked as the assistant of Franz Wittenbrink, Andreas Kriegenburg and Christoph Loy. Most important and formative was his collaboration with the German theatre director Peter Zadek during his last two productions before his death in 2009.
Matthias Engelmann finished his studies at the University of Music and Drama with a highly acclaimed production of Handel’s oratorio Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno at the Hamburg State Opera. He received the Masterclass award at the University of Fine Arts Vienna in 2001 and was both a finalist at the European Opera Directing Award (EOP) 2008 and the ring.award11 at the Opera house in Graz as well as the Komische Oper Berlin in 2011.
His work as a director and/or set and costume designer includes Shakespeares „Sommernachtstraum“, Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, Müller’s Quartett, Offenbach’s BatTaClan / Häuptling Abendwind (Hamburg), Beethoven’s Fidelio (Tirana), Verdi’s Ernani (Olmütz), Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Posen) and Gound’s Faust (Kaiserslautern).
Beside working as a director, stage and costume designer, he is currently striving for his Ph.D. in Psychoanalytic Cultural Studies in a post graduate studies program at the International Psychoanalytic University (IPU) of Berlin.
