Lothar Koenigs was Music Director of Welsh National Opera in 2009–2016.
He was born in Aachen and studied piano and conducting in Cologne. From 1999 to 2003 he was Music Director in Osnabrück, Germany. Since 2003 his guest engagements have included the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera New York, Munich, Dresden, La Scala, Hamburg, Brussels and Lyon in a wide repertoire ranging from Mozart to Berg, with a particular emphasis on the operas of Wagner, Strauss and Janacek.
Highlights of his tenure at WNO include Die Meistersinger in 2010, directed by Richard Jones with Bryn Terfel as Hans Sachs, which he also conducted in a televised BBC Prom in 2010, Tristan und Isolde at the Edinburgh Festival in 2012, and Moses und Aron in 2015, with performances at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.
Symphonic engagements include the Hallé, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Radio Orchestra Saarbrücken, RAI Orchestra Turin, DSO Berlin, Orchestra dell´Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome, Rotterdam Philharmonic; Orchestra Sinfonica de Sao Paulo; RAI Orchestra (Turin), Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin; Wiener Symphoniker; Dresden Philharmoniker in Verona; Sydney Symphony Orchestra; and the Boston Symphony at the Tanglewood Festival.
Recent engagements include Ariadne auf Naxos at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and at the 2021 Edinburgh Festival, Elektra for the Zürich Opera, La Clemenza di Tito, a new production of Lulu, and Die Zauberflöte at the Metropolitan Opera New York, Wozzeck, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Lohengrin for the Bavarian State Opera Munich, Salome for the Staatstheater Stuttgart, Die tote Stadt in Warsaw, Elektra, Daphne, Capriccio and Die tote Stadt for La Monnaie Brussels, Moses und Aron for the Teatro Real Madrid, Wozzeck, Pique Dame, Britten’s War Requiem, and Eugene Onegin in Oslo, Der Kreidekreis and Ariane et Barbe-Bleue in Lyon, Tristan und Isolde in Copenhagen, Capriccio in Frankfurt, and Tristan und Isolde, Lohengrin, Don Giovanni, Katya Kabanova, Fidelio, Ariadne auf Naxos, Turandot, and Pelleas et Melisande for WNO.
Engagements in 2021/22 include a new production of Capriccio in Munich.
(photo: Alexander Paul Englert)
