Maurice Lenhard

German-French stage director and dramaturg Maurice Lenhard initially studied singing at the University of Music and Performing Arts, and went on to study music theatre directing at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg with, among others, Willy Decker and Philipp Himmelmann. His work as a director has taken him to companies including the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Aschaffenburg State Theatre, the Rüsselsheim Theatre and the Belvedere Studio Theatre Weimar. Since 2018 he has also worked as a dramaturg.

From 2018 to 2020 Maurice Lenhard was employed as an assistant and revival director by Stuttgart State Opera, where he worked with directors including Lotte de Beer and Marco Štorman, and also directed his own productions, including Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Présence – Ballet blanc en cinq scènes at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, and a touring production of Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale, nominated for a special pandemic prize at the OPUS Klassik awards. From 2020 to 2022 Maurice Lenhard worked as a dramaturg as part of Ballett am Rhein’s artistic team, under the direction of Demis Volpi.

In autumn 2023 he will take over the artistic directorship of the newly founded opera studio of Vienna Volksoper, where in November he will stage Die Dreigroschenoper. He has a long-term working partnership with the director Lydia Steier, with whom he has worked on productions including Rameau’s Les Indes galantes at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the world premiere of Dai Fujikura’s A Dream of Armageddon at the New National Theatre in Tokyo and, in 2018, Die Zauberflöte at the Salzburg Festival. In September 2022 he will be the dramaturg for Lydia Steier’s production of Salome at the Paris Opéra.