Ingo Kerkhof

Equally at home directing opera and drama, director Ingo Kerkhof has worked in Berlin, Bern, Düsseldorf, Florence, Freiburg, Hamburg, Karlsruhe, Cologne, Linz, Mannheim, Munich, and Zurich, amongst others. He regularly works at the Hanover State Opera (productions such as "L'Orfeo", "Die Entführung aus dem Serail", "Le Nozze di Figaro", "Ariadne auf Naxos" and most recently "Salome"), as well as at Berlin's Staatsoper unter den Linden, where he recently collaborated with Baroque specialist René Jacobs on the celebrated rediscovery of Agostino Steffani's opera "Amor vien dal destino".

In addition to works from the Classical opera repertoire, Kerkhof has recently staged modern and contemporary works, such as Berg's "Wozzeck" at Cologne Opera (2011), Wolfgang Rihm's "Dionysos" at the Theater and Orchester Heidelberg (2013), Hans Krása's "Verlobung im Traum" at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe (2014), György Eötvös's "Angels in America" at the Theater Freiburg (2018), Salvatore Sciarrino's "Lohengrin" for the Berlin State Opera in the Schiller Theater (2014), as well as the world premieres of Helmut Oehring's "AGOTA" with Dagmar Manzel for the International May Festival Wiesbaden (2016) and the chamber opera "Comeback" by Oscar Strasnoy for the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden (2016).

After studying philosophy, political science and literature in Frankfurt am Main and Berlin, Kerkhof initially worked as an Assistant Director at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 1997 he founded the ensemble "Kerkhof-Produktion", with which he created performances for the Baracke des Deutschen Theater, for the Hebbeltheater in Berlin, the Sophiensæle in Berlin and the Theater am Neumarkt in Zurich. Invitations to the Intercity-Festival in Florence, the Zürcher Theaterspektakel and the Festival Theater der Welt soon followed. Ingo Kerkhof has taught at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar, the Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding in Munich and at the Universität der Künste Berlin.

Since 2014, Kerkhof has worked regularly at the Wiesbaden State Theatre, with productions such as "Alcina", "Orfeo ed Euridice", "Die Möwe", "Richard III", "Szenen einer Ehe", "Jenufa" and "Werther".