Biography

With the open-air production of Il Trovatore (G. Verdi), Jan Eßinger makes his debut this season at Staatstheater Braunschweig. Additionally, he will transfer Il viaggio a Reims (G. Rossini) to Theater Mönchengladbach and return to Heidelberg for Massenet’s Werther and to Koblenz for a staged version of Handel’s oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno in the theater tent at Deutsches Eck.

Recently, Jan Eßinger made his successful San Francisco debut with Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia (Merola Opera Program / SF Opera), was engaged for The Rake’s Progress (Igor Stravinsky) at Staatstheater Augsburg, and directed The Golden Dragon (P. Eötvös) at MusikTheater an der Wien (Kammeroper), Der Freischütz at Theater Koblenz, Le nozze di Figaro at Landestheater Detmold, and Carmen at Saarländisches Staatstheater.

Since 2017, Jan Eßinger has been working as a freelance director. He quickly gained recognition with productions such as Eugene Onegin at Bregenz Festival and the highly acclaimed baroque rediscovery of Die getreue Alceste (G.C. Schürmann) at the “Winter in Schwetzingen” festival. For his direction of Giselher Klebe’s opera Der jüngste Tag, he was mentioned in the critics‘ poll of the magazine “Die Deutsche Bühne.”

Initially engaged as an associate director at Komische Oper Berlin and later in the same position at Opernhaus Zürich, he worked with, among others, Barrie Kosky, Willy Decker, Andreas Homoki, Tatjana Gürbaca, Calixto Bieito, Stefan Herheim, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Herbert Fritsch, and Christof Loy. During this time, Jan Eßinger also directed several productions with the International Opera Studio Zurich.

Since 2020, Jan Eßinger has regularly been invited as a guest lecturer at the Berlin University of the Arts. Previously, he had already worked with various opera studios as a guest instructor for scenic workshops.

Jan Eßinger, born in Darmstadt, studied Musiktheaterregie at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater and currently lives in The Hague with his wife and their two children.