Matthias Schulz named director of the Zurich Opera House
beginning in 2025
On December 6, Matthias Schulz was introduced at a press conference by the President of the Board of Directors of Opernhaus Zürich AG, Markus Notter, as the new director of the Zurich Opera House. After the end of his contract at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, he will succeed Andreas Homoki, who has been running the house since 2012 and who will step down in 2025 at his own request. Matthias Schulz will take up his post in Zurich at the beginning of the 2025-26 season on August 1, 2025. In the interests of continuity, the organic handover and familiarization will begin August 1, 2024.
Markus Notter (Chairman of the Board of Directors of Opernhaus Zürich AG, Chairman of the Finding Committee): “By choosing Matthias Schulz, we have been able to win over a very prominent cultural mediator and experienced theater director for the management of the Zurich Opera House. The search committee decided unanimously in favor of Matthias Schulz's appointment following a targeted, selective procedure. We are very pleased to have found an excellent successor for Andreas Homoki and are certain that he will successfully lead the largest Swiss cultural institution, a flagship of international music theater, on the path of opening up into the future.”
Matthias Schulz (Artistic Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, incoming Artistic Director of the Zurich Opera House): “I am very pleased about the election as Artistic Director of the Zurich Opera House. The Zurich Opera House, together with the Zurich Ballet, the Zurich Philharmonia, and the Opera Choir, stands for the highest musical and staging quality, a lively and diverse opera repertoire, impulses through modernity and the cultivation of historical performance practice. These essential components of the house need to be further developed and enriched with bold new perspectives. This is a wonderful task with a great perspective, and the motivation is great to take over the Zurich Opera House from the esteemed Andreas Homoki. Berlin welcomed me very warmly in 2015; I am incredibly happy to be in this city and this great job as artistic director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden provided me with extremely valuable experiences! The employees of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the entire house have grown very dear to my heart, and so far we have done great things together. As planned, I look forward to the wonderful projects that we will do together in Berlin over the next two and a half seasons."
Senator for Culture and Europe, Dr. Klaus Lederer: “Matthias Schulz took over the State Opera as Artistic Director at a difficult time. After many years of fundamental renovation, it has resumed operations in the parent company on Unter den Linden. When COVID and the associated restrictions came in 2020, Matthias Schulz proved that he could get the house through this crisis without having to forego his own artistic accents - such as the Baroque Days. This is still true today. He opened the house to the younger audience in particular, made it interesting and, with the ensemble of the Staatsoper on Bebelplatz, brought culture to everyone. I am very grateful to Matthias Schulz for his open, hands-on, and prudent work in recent years, and I am glad that he will stay with the city for almost three more years. I'm looking forward to this time and then I wish him all the best in Zurich."
Andreas Homoki (Director of the Zurich Opera House since September 2012): “I am very happy for Zurich and for Matthias Schulz about his appointment. I value him very much as a colleague and am firmly convinced that, with his calm and determined manner, he is a very good choice for the Zurich Opera House. During the transition period I will of course support him actively."
Jacqueline Fehr (District President, Head of the Justice and Home Affairs Directorate, member of the search committee): “Matthias Schulz will make the Zurich Opera House an open and accessible opera house in the middle of a modern Europe, as a house that has great appeal and charisma for the Zurich public, but also for international guests and many new visitors of all ages. I am convinced that with Matthias Schulz, the opera house will continue to be a locally anchored lighthouse of Swiss culture in Zurich that will shine far beyond the borders of the country. Matthias Schulz will be an ideal actor for the important process of cultural change with socially relevant issues such as openness, equality, diversity, inclusion, sustainability and participation, which the opera house is already actively tackling."