Georges Delnon is a Swiss director, theatre director and professor. Raised in Berne, he studied history and art history at the Universities of Berne and Fribourg as well as composition and music history at the Berne Conservatory. In 1985 he was one of the founders of “Atelier 20”, a group for contemporary theatre and music in Berne. This was followed by numerous musical theatre and drama productions, including Carmen and Die Fledermaus at the Frankfurt Opera, Dido in Toulouse, The Rape of Lucretia in Düsseldorf and Basel, La traviata, Madame Butterfly and The Love for Three Oranges in Dortmund, Miss Julie in Essen, La Griselda (Vivaldi) in Geneva, Der Junge Lord (Henze), Maria Stuart and Ezio (Händel Festival) in Karlsruhe, Parsifal, Jenůfa and Medea in Saarbrücken and Hofmanns Erzählungen in Hanover. In 2003 he was appointed honorary professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. In 1996 he took over his first post as artistic director at the Municipal Theatre in Koblenz and was co-founder of the festival Festungsspiele Koblenz. From 1999 to 2006 he was artistic director of the Mainz State Theatre. In 2004 he directed the world premiere of Mark André’s 22,13 at the Munich Biennial, which was also shown in Mainz and at the Festival d’Automne à Paris at the Opéra National de Paris. In 2005 and 2006 he staged the world premiere of Zaubern by Frederik Zeller and the baroque opera Proserpina by Joseph Martin Kraus at the Schwetzingen Festival. With the beginning of the 2006/2007 season, Georges Delnon was appointed director of the Basel Theatre, the largest three-genre theatre in Switzerland. Since 2009 Georges Delnon has been artistic director of musical theatre for the Schwetzingen SWR Festival. With the beginning of the 2015/2016 season, he took up his position as artistic director of the Hamburg State Opera.
