Michael Engelhardt

The actor and speaker Michael Engelhardt was born in Bonn in 1960. From 1978 to 1981, he attended the Westfälische Schau­spielschule Bochum and subsequently performed as an ensemble member and guest artist at a number of theaters, including the children’s and youth theater Rote Grütze in Berlin, Kampnagel in Hamburg, Theaterhof Priessenthal, Schauspiel Bonn, kleines theater Bad Godesberg, neues theater Halle, and Ro Theater Rotterdam. Together with pianist Christoph Tycho Knigge, he spent 20 years performing German-language poetry and melodramas. He has also col­laborated with Corny Littmann, Adrienne Goehler, Martin Lüttge, Valentin Jeker, Guy Cassiers, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and Polina Leschenko. He has engaged intensively with the work of Friedrich Hölderlin and presented a wide variety of programmes. In the Beethoven Hölderlin Year 2020 he developed a “Metrics Lab” together with Boris Previšić in the newly redesigned museum in the Hölderlin Tower in Tübingen and toured with the Hölderlin piece Sprache! Grosses Kino in Switzerland and Germany. Since 2021, he has been working increasingly in Switzerland; he performed at the 2021 Lucerne Festival, directed the opening of the 2023 Alpentöne Festival in Altdorf, and in the same year wrote the libretto for Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s melodrama Sedna, which they presented together at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival. In his recitations, Michael Engelhardt focuses on what he calls “responsible speech”: a clearly articulated performance of language and of its elevated, heightened tone. Dynamics and tonal form are meant to provide a persuasive answer to the question “Why this way and not another?” For the production of Wolfgang Rihm’s Tutuguri at Lucerne Festival in the summer of 2026, Engelhardt has produced a new translation of Antonin Artaud’s texts and, together with Jörg Widmann, dramaturg Mark Sattler and lighting designer Markus Güdel, has created his own stage version.

One previous appearance at Lucerne Festival: on 25 August 2021, when Michael Engelhardt gave a performance of Hölderlin accompanied by Beethoven Bagatelles played by Stefan Wirth.

August 2026