As “one of the few conductors in the world who performs the newest music as adeptly as Beethoven, Wagner, and Sibelius” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), Roland Kluttig appears on international opera and concert stages with a wide-ranging repertoire. A particular focus of his work includes compositions by Schumann, Wagner, Berg, Debussy, Janáček, and Sibelius.
Roland Kluttig opened the current season conducting the Ensemble Modern at the Tongyeong International Music Festival. He continues his work as Principal Guest Conductor at Wermland Opera in Sweden with three concert programmes and will also make his debut with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra. Another debut is scheduled for May 2026: following his great success with Alban Berg’s Wozzeck at the Aalto Theater in Essen in 2024, he will make his first guest appearance at the Staatstheater Nürnberg with a new production of Lulu directed by Jens-Daniel Herzog.
Following highly acclaimed productions of Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe-Bleue and Szymanowski’s Król Roger at Graz Opera, he served as Principal Conductor there from 2020 to 2023. Highlights of this period include the Austrian premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas’ opera Morgen und Abend, Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, Janáček’s Katja Kabanova, and concerts with the Graz Philharmonic at the Musikverein Graz and the Konzerthaus Wien. In 2021, his conducting of Morton Feldman’s Neither at the Salzburg Festival with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra was hailed in the press as a “stellar moment.” He also conducted the first staged production of Die Walküre at the Greek National Opera to great acclaim. Last season, he led a new production of Mieczysław Weinberg’s opera The Passenger at the German National Theatre in Weimar, staged by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito.
During his tenure as General Music Director at the Landestheater Coburg (2010–2020), productions of Wagner’s Lohengrin and Parsifal attracted national attention. He was nominated as Conductor of the Year by Opernwelt magazine for his interpretation of Beethoven’s Fidelio. Since 2000, he has maintained a close collaboration with the Stuttgart State Opera, where he conducted a spectacular new production of Strauss’ Salome in 2015 and a new production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro in 2019.
Roland Kluttig has also appeared as a guest conductor at Frankfurt Opera (Euryanthe), Hamburg State Opera (Die tote Stadt), Leipzig Opera, National Theatre Mannheim, Opéra Nice Côte d’Azur, Opéra national du Rhin, and Norrlandsoperan in Sweden (Wozzeck and Peter Grimes). In concert, he has worked with the Philharmonia Orchestra London, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and many others.
His recordings of Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron with the Stuttgart State Opera and Weinberg’s The Passenger with Graz Opera received very positive international reviews. He has also recorded works by lesser-known composers close to his heart, including Erwin Schulhoff with the DSO Berlin and Silvestre Revueltas with the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, of which he was Musical Director in the 1990s.
Roland Kluttig studied in Dresden and has been supported by the Eötvös Institute, the Conductors’ Forum of the German Music Council, the Akademie Schloss Solitude, and the Herbert von Karajan Foundation. Since 2025, he has been Professor and Director of the University Orchestra at the Carl Maria von Weber University of Music in Dresden.
For more information, see www.rolandkluttig.de
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