Director and artistic director Jürgen Flimm died at the age of 81

Born on July 17, 1941 to a Protestant family of doctors, Flimm studied theater studies, German and sociology in Cologne. He began his directing career in 1968 as an assistant to Fritz Kortner and Claus Peymann at the Munich Kammerspiele. As a theater director he earned merits in Cologne from 1979 to 1985. As artistic director from 1985 to 2000, he made Hamburg’s Thalia Theater the most visited stage in Germany.

Flimm directed the Ruhrtriennale and the Salzburg Festival (2006-2010). From 2010 to 2018 he was director of the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden. He has worked at La Scala in Milan, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden London, the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera New York and the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals, among others.

He received mixed reactions with his Bayreuth “Ring des Nibelungen”, as did his collaboration with Nikolaus Harnoncourt on Henry Purcell’s “King Arthur” in Salzburg. He was celebrated undividedly in New York with Beethoven’s “Fidelio”, which was named the best opera production of the year by the “New York Times”. He was also a director in film and television productions and also worked as an actor.