After an intensive search and numerous discussions with potential candidates, the Bayreuth Festival announces that Thomas Eitler-de Lint will become the new Director of the Bayreuth Festival Chorus, succeeding Eberhard Friedrich, who will reach retirement age in 2025. Thomas Eitler-de Lint has held positions of responsibility at the Vienna Volksoper, the National Opera in Amsterdam, various radio choirs such as WDR, NDR, MDR, the Zurich and Hanover opera houses and, in 2016, as guest choir director at the Shanghai Opera. Since November 2017, he has been choir director at Leipzig Opera with numerous productions including ‘Tosca’, ‘Carmen’, ‘La fanciulla del west’, ‘La traviata’, ‘Die Frau ohne Schatten’ and ‘Johannes-Passion’. At WAGNER 22 – the Wagner Festival of the Leipzig Opera, Thomas Eitler-de Lint was responsible for rehearsing all of Richard Wagner’s operas with choral participation and has proven expertise in Wagner. He also stands for a sound that is highly regarded in Bayreuth. With regard to the future of the Festival Choir, the Artistic Director and Thomas Eitler-de Lint have agreed to create a new structure that will fully meet the high demands of the Festival in terms of both quantity (up to 134 choristers, depending on the piece) and quality. Mr Eitler-de Lint sees the restructuring as an opportunity and, above all, as contemporary.
We are very much looking forward to our time together!