Klaus Zehelein

Klaus Zehelein (born 5 September 1940) is a German dramaturge. He was president of the Munich Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding. Zehelein is also president of the association of German theatres, Deutscher Bühnenverein. For fifteen years, from 1991 until 2006, Zehelein was artistic director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart. Critic Gerhard Rohde, summing up Zehelein's theatre work at the Stuttgart opera, says "Zehelein does not view opera as a culinary phenomenon. For him opera is an extremely complex matter, where all arts – as well as social, philosophical, historic, utopic and other aspects – unite. This complexity of opera merits being perceived, being seen, being experienced; thus all works that end up performed on stage, are rigorously analyzed beforehand. He who says this results in thinned-out, merely sophisticated opera performances, missed out substantially in the Zehelein-Era in Stuttgart." Provided by Wikipedia