Tobias Kratzer, born in Landshut, studied Art History and Philosophy in Munich and Bern, as well as Acting and Opera Directing at the August Everding Theatre Academy. In 2008, under two pseudonyms, he participated in the “Ring Award” competition in Graz and won, with both identities, all the special prizes awarded in the competition, as well as the first prize. Since then, he has received awards such as the German Theatre Prize Der Faust (Götterdämmerung in Karlsruhe), Opera Director of the Year in the specialized magazine Die Deutsche Bühne, and Director of the Year 2020 (Tannhäuser in Bayreuth and Guillaume Tell in Lyon). He has directed works, among others, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Der Zwerg, Arabella, Intermezzo, Die Frau ohne Schatten), at the Komische Oper (Das Floß der Medusa), and at the Oper Frankfurt (L’Africaine / Vasco da Gama, La forza del destino), as well as at opera houses in Oslo, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris. In the 2025/26 season, he will assume the artistic directorship of the Staatsoper Hamburg. Following the new production of Mieczysław Weinberg’s Die Passagierin, his debut work on the National Theatre stage, he will direct the new Ring of the Nibelung here, which will start in the 2024/25 season with Das Rheingold and continue in June 2026 with Die Walküre.