In the 2025/26 season, Dirk Schmeding directs The Bartered Bride at the Vienna State Opera, Pelléas et Mélisande at Staatstheater Darmstadt, and La fanciulla del West at the Aalto-Theater Essen.

Recent productions include L’elisir d’amore at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz and Pagliacci at Staatsoper Hannover (2024/25), as well as Il trittico at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, Venus in Seide at Oper Graz, Hänsel und Gretel at the Luzerner Theater, and Les Contes d’Hoffmann at Staatstheater Darmstadt (2023/24).

Earlier notable productions include the German premiere of Dai Fujikura’s Solaris at Staatstheater Augsburg, Jaromír Weinberger’s Schwanda the Bagpiper at Oper Graz, and acclaimed stagings of Detlev Glanert’s Caligula (Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar) and Mieczysław Weinberg’s The Passenger (Staatstheater Braunschweig). His production of the German premiere of Albéric Magnard’s Guercœur at Theater Osnabrück, hailed by both audiences and critics, was named “Rediscovery of the Year” in the Opernwelt critics’ poll and nominated for the 2020 International Opera Awards.

Schmeding’s work has taken him to Theater an der Wien, Theater St. Gallen, Luzerner Theater, the state theatres of Darmstadt, Braunschweig, and Augsburg, the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, Theater Kiel, Mainfranken Theater Würzburg, the SWR Festival in Schwetzingen, and Oper Graz.

Born in 1983, Dirk Schmeding studied art and literary studies in Braunschweig before turning to theatre. Following assistant directorships at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, and the Salzburg Festival, he began working as a freelance opera director in 2013.