Passionate pedagogue
Jochen Biganzoli becomes Professor of Music Theatre/Scene in Weimar
The Department of Singing | Music Theatre is pleased to welcome a competent reinforcement: On January 1, 2024, Jochen Biganzoli will follow an appointment as the new Professor of Music Theatre/Scene at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar. His core tasks include teaching scenic lessons in the Bachelor's and Master's degree courses in singing. He is also responsible for the artistic and organizational management of the study area with his own scenic projects and presentations, particularly in the university's own Belvedere Studio Theatre.
"We consider ourselves fortunate to have gained such a distinguished artistic personality for the field of scenic training and music theatre," says the Director of the Department of Voice | Music Theatre, Prof. Christoph Ritter.
"In Jochen Biganzoli, the appointment committee got to know a passionate pedagogue who was able to convince them with his innovative and forward-looking teaching concept. We can look forward to musical-theatrical fireworks. His unconditional openness to new music and contemporary forms of music theatre performance is particularly intriguing."
"With almost 30 years of theatre experience, it is important to me to prepare students for the challenges of the changing theatre landscape, because they are the next generation who will play a key role in shaping the future of music theatre," says Jochen Biganzoli. "I want to introduce students to the Gesamtkunstwerk of musical theatre as a living, contemporary and innovative art form and accompany their personal, artistic and technical development."
While studying theatre and musicology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Jochen Biganzoli moved into practical theatre work - initially as an assistant director, senior director and section head, but soon with his own extremely successful work as a music theatre director at theatres such as Bielefeld and Bielefeld.
He soon went on to direct his own highly successful musical theatre productions at the theatres in Bielefeld, Detmold, Pforzheim, Flensburg, Augsburg, Osnabrück, Regensburg, Lübeck, Hagen, Halle and Leipzig, as well as at the Hamburg State Opera, the Semperoper Dresden, the Kongelige Teater Copenhagen and the Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona. The Thuringian theatres in Gera, Eisenach and Meiningen have always been among the stations in his career.
In September 2013, Jochen Biganzoli made his successful debut at the Hamburg State Opera, where he staged "The Master and Margarita" by York Höller. For this production, he received the Rolf Mares Prize of the Hamburg Theatres in the category "Outstanding Production".
He was nominated for the German theatre prize "Der Faust" for his direction of Dmitri Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" at Theater Lübeck in March 2016. This was followed in May 2016 by his successful debut at the Dresden Semperoper with Hindemith's "Mathis der Maler". In 2018, Jochen Biganzoli staged his first Handel opera "Berenice" at the Halle Handel Festival.
This was followed in 2019 by Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" at the Hagen Theatre, which was a great success. He was also nominated for the German theatre prize "Der Faust" in the category "Director of Musical Theatre" for this production. Further directing work followed in 2020 and 2021 at the Hagen Theatre ("Cardillac" and "The Turn of the Screw") and the Staatstheater Kassel ("Christmas Oratorio"). In 2022, his productions of "Tristan und Isolde" at Oper Halle, "Faust - Margarethe" at Staatstheater Augsburg and "Die tote Stadt" at Staatstheater Meinigen celebrated their premieres.
Jochen Biganzoli can look back on extensive teaching experience at the University of the Arts Bremen, the University of Music and Theatre Hamburg and the University of Music and Dance Cologne.
[14 December 2023]