For our first Industry Insights Interview Series, Oper Germany welcomes stage director & Intendant of Theater Ulm , Kay Metzger. In his expansive career spanning over four decades, Mr. Metzger has directed numerous stage productions and since 2018 has been the artistic director at Theater Ulm. He has also served as the artistic director at the Landestheater Detmold from 2004 until 2018 and at the Nordharzer Städtebundtheater from 1999 to 2004.
In our interview, you’ll gain an invaluable 40 year perspective from a theatre director who has seen it all! He gives his insights on best audition practices, how the casting system works in Germany, his preferences on repertoire choices & the need for versatility in the German theatre system as well as the best qualities that make for a desirable singer/employee at an opera company in Germany.
Click on the photo below to watch his full interview on our YouTube channel.
Kay Metzger was born in Kiel in 1960, grew up in Bonn and Mannheim, and studied theater studies in Munich. There he began his theater career as assistant to August Everding. During his many years of working on Everding’s productions, Metzger was involved in the 1988 production of Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung” in Warsaw and, in 1994, as co-director of Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” in Meiningen. From 1984 to 1988, Kay Metzger was an assistant at the Theater Bielefeld and the Aalto Theater Essen. From 1989 to 1993, he worked as a freelance director for drama, opera, operetta, musicals, and children’s and youth theater, including in Krakow and Gdansk. He then became senior director for musical theater in Halberstadt and Coburg. From 1999 to 2004, he was artistic director at the Nordharzer Städtebundtheater, and from 2004 to 2018 at the Landestheater Detmold. With the “Ring” project, spanning several seasons, and with ‘Parsifal’ and “Tristan und Isolde,” the Landestheater Detmold established a program of Richard Wagner’s operas during his tenure as artistic director that was highly acclaimed by critics. Numerous performances of contemporary works for musical theater also attracted national attention, in particular the world premiere of Giselher Klebe’s last opera “Chlestakow’s Return,” which was commissioned by the Landestheater Detmold. For his production of Grabbe’s Hermannsschlacht, he was nominated alongside Karin Beier and Dimiter Gotscheff for the 2009 FAUST Theater Prize in the category “Best Director of a Play.” His production of George Benjamin’s “Written on Skin” led to a collaboration with the Royal Opera in Stockholm, which added the Detmold production to its repertoire in 2015.Metzger initiated the International Giselher Klebe Composition Competition in Detmold to promote contemporary music theater and the Christian Dietrich Grabbe Playwriting Competition for contemporary drama. The winning works in each competition were premiered at the Landestheater Detmold. From 2011 to 2018, Kay Metzger was also chairman of the Landesbühnengruppe (State Theater Group) and a member of the executive committee of the Deutscher Bühnenverein (German Stage Association). In 2018, he took up the position of artistic director at Theater Ulm. With the world premiere of Charles Tournemire’s opera “La Légende de Tristan,” he brought national attention to Theater Ulm and won the ‘Opernwelt’ award for “World Premiere of the Year 2023.” In 2025, he staged a second highly acclaimed Tournemire premiere with “Le petit pauvre d’Assise.” Metzger’s tenure at Theater Ulm ends in 2026.
Biography & photo courtesy of Theater Ulm