Josef Ernst Köpplinger will remain director of the State Theater at Gärtnerplatz in Munich until 2030. On Thursday, the 59-year-old signed an extension to his contract in Munich for a further three years. Köpplinger said he was pleased to follow the wishes of the Ministry of Art and the unanimous vote of the Council of Ministers.
For the Bavarian Minister of Art Markus Blume, he is exactly the right person for the job: “Everyone loves the Gärtnerplatztheater – and director Josef Köpplinger is the creative head of this theater magic. Under his leadership, the house has achieved great artistic success at home in Bavaria as well as international attention.” Blume emphasized the “special spirit” of the house and was pleased with the good visitor numbers: “In the current season, occupancy is 94 percent. That’s impressive!”
Köpplinger and his team now want to continue working on the “profile of an open music theater that sets no limits to the freedom of art. In the spirit of Friedrich Hebbel: ‘Art is the conscience of humanity”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/ .”
The native Austrian has been running the State Theater since the 2012/2013 season. As a director, he also repeatedly develops pieces from opera to operetta to musicals; His production of the Kästner revue operetta “Three Men in the Snow,” for example, won three awards at the German Musical Theater Prize in 2019. It is also running in the current season at Gärtnerplatz, like his “Fledermaus” and soon “The Marriage of Figaro”, “The Barber of Seville” and “Les Misérables”.