was born in 1958 in Hanau am Main and has been Artistic Director of the Osnabrück Theatre since the start of the 2011/12 season. Up until 2011, Waldschmidt spent four years as Director of Opera at the Augsburg Theatre and previous to that was Head Dramaturg and Assistant Artistic Director to Klaus Pierwoß at the Bremen Theatre. After studying German, English and Theatre Sciences at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Ralf Waldschmidt gained his Ph.D. in 1987 for a thesis on Richard Wagner's Parsifal. He was subsequently Assistant Director and Dramaturg at the State Theatre in Saarbrücken and then at the Frankfurt Opera House. From 1987 to 1992, he held the post of Dramaturg for Theatre, Opera and Ballet at the National Theatre in Mannheim. After moving to the Düsseldorfer Theatre, Waldschmidt was Head Theatre Dramaturg and a member of the Artistic Board at the State Theatre in Darmstadt and at the Freiburg Theatre. From 1999 to 2003, he held the post of Dramaturg at the State Operahouse Unter den Linden in Berlin.
Photo: Marek Kruszewski
