The website “buehnenjobs.de” is currently looking for a chief make-up artist for the Landestheater Schwaben, a specialist in event technology at the municipal theater in Frankfurt/Main, a trainee for the dance class room play “Hummeln im Po” at the Theater Osnabrück, a deputy solo Oboe with the Bielefeld Philharmonic – and an artistic director (m/f/d) for the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
The Berlin Senator for Culture, Klaus Lederer, hopes to find an “experienced, courageous and empathetic leader” in this way. An “integrative management style characterized by trust and commitment” should characterize the applicants, “motivational skills” and “experience in successful diversity-sensitive personnel management” are also desirable. The contract period is at least five years, no information is given on the salary, but that should be quite a lot at the largest Berlin opera house with 550 employees.
Such a public tender is unusual for top stage jobs: they are usually awarded by selection committees made up of experts who make a proposal to the responsible cultural politician. In the case of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, that’s how it went in Berlin – and it happened to be Elisabeth Sobotka, Daniel Barenboim’s preferred candidate. At the Komische Oper, on the other hand, Klaus Lederer arranged the successor to Barrie Kosky in-house: for the period of the general renovation of the house, the previous managing director Susanne Moser and the long-standing opera director Philip Bröking form a dual leadership.
Culture Senator Lederer now wants to try something different, as his spokesman Daniel Bartsch explains when asked by the Tagesspiegel: A transparent, open “promotion of interest process” in which anyone who considers themselves qualified can apply until September 28th To be able to manage the Deutsche Oper just as well as the artistic director Dietmar Schwarz, who is leaving in 2025.
Only in a second step is there a competent advisory committee, which is to review the applications and submit a selection to the “Oper in Berlin” foundation. From this, the foundation board can then select the future member. This name could be fixed by mid-2023, at least that’s what Klaus Lederer hopes.
