Artists
About Artist
Jossi Wieler
Director
Born in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, in 1951. After his university entrance examination he lived in Israel from 1972 to 1980 and studied direction at Tel Aviv University. His first productions were at the Israeli National Theatre Habima. He returned to Europe and became assistant director at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus.
From 1982, he staged his first productions in Düsseldorf before he moved to be a permanent director at Heidelberg Theatre from 1983 to 1985. Wieler also produced at Stuttgart Staatstheater and at Schauspiel Bonn. He has been invited numerous times to the Berliner Theatertreffen; for the first time in 1985 with his Bonn production of Kleistʼs "Amphitryon" and twice with productions at Münchner Kammerspiele (in 2001 with "Alkestis" and in 2004 with "Mittagswende").
From 1988 he was a staff director at Basel Theatre and in 1993 moved to the Hamburg Schauspielhaus with the manager Frank Baumbauer. He is regarded as an expert in staging Elfriede Jelinekʼs texts. In 1994 his production of Elfriede Jelinekʼs "Clouds. Home." ("Wolken. Heim.") was invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen and various European festivals. "Clouds. Home." was voted production of the year by critics and was awarded the main prize in the "Kontakt" Festival in Torun/Poland. The production "Rechnitz (Der Würgenengel)" which he staged at Münchner Kammerspiele has been invited to numerous international festivals and was awarded the Mülheim Drama Award and the Nestroy Theatre Award in the category "best German-language play". The leading German theatre magazine Theater Heute chose the production as play of the year 2009.
Since 1994 Wieler has also produced operas in Stuttgart, Basel, Hanover, San Francisco and at the Salzburg Festival. Wieler is a member of the Academy of the Arts in Berlin and received the Konrad Wolf Prize in 2002. Since 2011 Jossi Wieler has been the Artistic Director of the State Opera in Stuttgart.