Peter Theiler

Peter Theiler was born in Basel in 1956. Even before graduating from university (where he studied history and German literature), he was working as an assistant director at various opera houses such as the Grand Théâtre de Genève and Frankfurt Opera, where he was greatly influenced by his collaboration with director Ruth Berghaus. Peter Theiler married costume designer Gabriele Heimann since 1984. He held his first director's position in the 1987/88 season at Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen; a year later, he relocated to the Opéra de Nice as its artistic and stage director. From 1991 to 1995, Peter Theiler was the director of "Perspectives", the only French theatre festival outside of France, based in Saarbrücken. At the same time, he began to teach stagecraft at the Musik Akademie Basel's opera studio. For two seasons, from 1994 to 1996, Theiler worked as general director and stage designer at Nationaltheater Mannheim before returning to his home country Switzerland for the 1996/97 season as the ensemble director of Theâtre des Régions Biel/Bienne-Solothurn.

He then moved to Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen as its general director for the 2001/02 season; after that, he relocated to Staatstheater Nürnberg at the start of the 2008/09 season as its artist director. Peter Theiler regularly sits on the jury of international singing competitions; he is an active member of Deutscher Bühnenverein, Germany's association for theatres, opera houses, drama, ballet and opera companies and orchestras, and a member of the executive board of the Chambre Professionnelle des Directeurs d'Opéra in Paris. For his contributions to the promotion of French theatre in Germany, the French Minister of Culture awarded him the honour of "Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres" in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1996. In the autumn of 2004, he was yet again honoured with another award from the same order, the rank of officer, for his cross-border services to French culture. Since the 2018/19 season, Peter Theiler has been the artistic director of the Semperoper Dresden.