The Swiss director Stefan Bachmann, currently artistic director at the Schauspiel Köln, will become director of the Burgtheater in Vienna in 2024. This most important persona of the theater year leaked through the Austrian media on Tuesday evening and will be officially announced this Wednesday in Vienna.
The 56-year-old Bachmann follows Martin Kušej in Vienna, who has been in charge of the Burgtheater since 2019 and surprisingly withdrew his renewed application on Tuesday afternoon. At this point it was already clear that his application would not stand a chance and that Bachmann would become his successor.
Stefan Bachmann, born in Zurich in 1966, is an excellent director who has also staged a great deal at the Burgtheater in Vienna and therefore knows the house well. He is considered a team player and also has the necessary management experience that a Burgtheater boss must have. From 1998 to 2003 he was acting director in Basel. Since 2003, under difficult conditions, he has been in charge of the Schauspiel Köln, which has been a major construction site since he took office. He developed the alternative location in Cologne-Mülheim into a successful theater location. In Cologne, his contract has already been extended twice and actually runs until 2026.