Director and Artistic Director and Managing Director of the Akademie für Darstellende Kunst Baden-Württemberg, born in Duisburg in 1963, studied music and German language and literature (University of Dortmund) and then conducting with Helmuth Rilling at the Bach Academy in Stuttgart. After several years as a musician and choral conductor, Ludger Engels turned to the theatre.
From 2005 to 2013, he was head director and deputy artistic director at Aachen Theatre and became internationally renowned as a director for his interdisciplinary and cross-spatial works.
He has created productions, projects and installations for theatres, opera houses, festivals and museums in Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, the USA, Australia and South Korea, among others.
Since 2022, Ludger Engels has curated and staged the “Music and Art in Dialogue” series with the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra and the Küppersmühle Museum, with four concert performances to date. Together with the orchestra, he created the neighbourhood project “Marxloh Music Circus” in summer 2023.
His most recent works include the walk-in theatre installation “Lulu” after Frank Wedekind (Theater Aachen), the baroque operas “L’Orontes”, “La Calisto” and “Il Trionfo” (Theater Aachen), “Der Fleigende Holländer” at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, the German premiere of “Alzheim”, a music theatre in 50 pictures by Xavier Dayer at the Staatstheater Cottbus, the Swiss premiere of the opera “Kròl Roger”, the world premiere of “Die Vorübergehenden” at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the music theatre “Returning Home” based on Monteverdi’s “Il ritorno d’Ulisses” in dialogue with early Korean music for the Tongyeong International Music Festival Korea and the Radialsystem Berlin, the video installation “Boasted Fire” for the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum in Mannheim, the space-sound project “Tempi Agitati” (Stuttgart and San Diego/USA).
For the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen in Hanover, he created the sound installation “Chorus” with 400 singers and the music theatre “Semele Walk” based on Handel in Vivienne Westwood’s couture.
Ludger Engels has been teaching opera and theatre directing for several years at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin and the Toneelacademie Maastricht, among others. Since 2015, he has been Head of Studies and Professor of Directing at the Akademie für Darstellende Kunst Baden-Württemberg (ADK), where he has been Director and Managing Director since 1 April 2022.
