Sven-Eric Bechtolf

Actor and director Sven-Eric Bechtolf was born in Darmstadt in 1957 and trained at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. His engagements as an actor have taken him to the Zurich Schauspielhaus, the Bochum Schauspielhaus, the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg, the Burgtheater in Vienna, the Almeida Theatre in London and the Ruhrtriennale. He was awarded the Nestroy Theatre Prize in 2002 for his performance as Friedrich Hofreiter in Andrea Breth’s production of Schnitzler’s Das weite Land at the 2002 Salzburg Festival and in 2001 for his appearance in Luc Bondy’s 2000 production of Yasmina Reza’s Life×3 at the Burgtheater. He played the Good Companion and the Devil in Christian Stückl’s production of Jedermann at the 2007 and 2008 Salzburg Festivals. He received the Albin Skoda Ring in 2010.
Since 1994 Sven-Eric Bechtolf has been active as a director, working at the Thalia Theatre, in Barcelona, at the Burgtheater, at the Ruhrtriennale and elsewhere. He made his debut as an opera director with Berg’s Lulu at the Zurich Opera in 2000 and is also closely associated with the Vienna State Opera, where his productions have included Wagner’s Ring (2006–9) and, most recently, La Cenerentola and Rusalka. At the Salzburg Festival he staged Ariadne auf Naxos in 2012 and completes his Mozart-Da Ponte opera cycle in summer 2015 with Le nozze di Figaro, as well as co-directing Mackie Messer – Eine Salzburger Dreigroschenoper.
Sven-Eric Bechtolf has been head of drama at the Salzburg Festival since 2012 and has been in charge of overall artistic planning since autumn 2014.

Current as of July 2015