Designated Director of Leipzig Opera House is getting started

Together with the international performers of Theater Titanick, Tobias Wolff has initiated an interactive cooperative project with children and youths, which is designed to look at innovate ways in which younger audiences experience music theatre. This project for the local school Helmholtzschule and the socio-cultural centre Buddehaus/ FAIRbund e.V.  is titled Zukunft JETZT! – meaning future now. It obtained sums in the five figures from the “Kultur macht stark” programme, which is financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Workshops for the music- and theatre-pedagogical “Stadtteiloper,” which will have its first performance in Wolff’s inaugural season, have also begun. This second youth initiative, led by the Ralf-Rangnick-Foundation, will be realised in cooperation with the Musikalische Komödie and is supported in part by the Leipzig Foundation. Finally, after conducting a thorough review, Wolff plans to revise the subscription system currently in place at the Oper Leipzig.

 “My team is especially interested in initiating far-reaching and creative processes that stand for quality, intimacy, and sustainability”, Tobias Wolff states. “Tackling such an exciting task in my adopted city of Leipzig and helping to shape the future of opera here is an incredible gift.”

Tobias Wolff presented his new management team in March of this year. His new Director of Opera Cornelia Preissinger has gained international experience at some of the world’s most distinguished opera houses. Marlene Hahn, who made a name for herself in Augsburg and Graz with innovative projects and ideas, will take over as Heaqd Artistic Advisor and Dramaturge. Christoph Gedschold, who has been Kapellmeister at the Oper Leipzig since the 2015/16 season, will assume the role of Music Director, and continue his work expanding his repertoire of Strauss and Wagner. The full season programme of Team Tobias Wolff will be presented in February 2022.

Tobias Wolff – further information and biography

The City of Leipzig’s Council confirmed Tobias Wolff as Director and General Manager of the Oper Leipzig from the 2022/23 season on 3 September 2019. Tobias Wolff will take over his new role as of 1 August 2022 in succession of Prof. Ulf Schirmer. Tobias Wolff led the Göttingen International Handel Festival from 2011 until May 2021. His anniversary programme, to celebrate the festival’s centenary anniversary, has been moved to September 2021.   

After his music degree at trinity College, Cambridge, 1998, Tobias Wolff studied viola at the Folkwang University of Arts inEssen and at the Robert-Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf until 2002. His first professional engagements were at the International Beethoven Festival in Bonn, and at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. He lives in Leipzig since 2002, where he has worked as a freelance musician, concert agent, and music journalist, including assignments for the Leipziger Volkszeitung, MDR Kultur, and others.

Beginning in 2006, Wolff worked as Head Artistic Advisor and and Marketing Director at the Theater Altenburg-Gera. During the 2010/11 season, he took on the position of Administrative Director and led the theatre successfully through a period of crisis. At the same time, he completed a management course at HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management in 2011, earning an international MBA. In the same year, he was appointed managing director of the Göttingen International Handel Festival, one of the oldest festivals for Baroque music worldwide. He repositioned the festival internationally, introduced unconventional formats, and strategically promoted young talent while prioritising music education and communication. For his efforts, the festival was the recipient of two Helpmann Awards, the Förderpreis Musikvermittlung des Musiklandes Niedersachsen, and EU funding for “eeemerging,” a scholarship programme he co-initiated. In the exceptional Corona year of 2020, Tobias Wolff was involved in cultural politics as co-founder and spokesperson for the Forum Musik Festival, an association of over 100 festival organisations from all over Germany.