After studying at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre, Dörte Lyssewski made her debut at the Berliner Schaubühne, where she was a member of the ensemble for seven years. There she worked with Peter Stein, Klaus Michael Grüber and Luc Bondy, among others. Engagements have repeatedly taken her to the Schauspielhaus Zürich, the Deutsches Theater and the Volksbühne in Berlin, to Bochum and to the Odéon – Théâtre de l’Europe in Paris. She has been a member of the ensemble at Vienna’s Burgtheater since 2009. She has worked with Martin Kušej, Ernst Stötzner, Jürgen Gosch, Heiner Müller, Werner Schroeter, Patrice Chéreau, Thomas Vinterberg, Dušan David Pařízek and Frank Castorf. She was most recently seen at the Akademietheater in Am Ziel, directed by Matthias Rippert.
She first appeared at the Salzburg Festival in 1992, where she worked with Andrzej Wajda and Herbert Wernicke, among others; in 1997 she played Libussa in Peter Stein’s acclaimed production and for three years (1999, 2000, 2001) the Buhlschaft alongside Ulrich Tukur in Jedermann. In co-operation with Gerard Mortier, she took part in numerous musical productions in Salzburg and through him came to the Ruhrtriennale, which he founded, and to the Paris Opera. She has also realised musical works with Claudio Abbado, Sylvain Cambreling, Marc Minkowski and Alain Altinoglu. She has also repeatedly performed at the Wiener Festwochen, the Opéra National de Montpellier and the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels.
Dörte Lyssewski received the Josef Kainz Medal in 1997, the Gertrud Eysoldt Ring in 2004 and the Nestroy Theatre Prize in 2012 and 2018. In 2015, she published her first collection of stories Der Vulkan oder Die Heilige Irene with Matthes & Seitz Berlin. This was followed in 2022 by the translation of Henri-Pierre Roché’s episodic novel Don Juan und … from French by Klever Wien.
In 2021, Dörte Lyssewski directed J. M. R. Lenz’s Der neue Menoza at the Salzburg State Theatre for the first time; her first opera direction followed in 2022 with Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, also at the Salzburg State Theatre.
