PHILIPP WESTERBARKEI born 1987. heralded by the german press for his “exciting, versatile and intense” staging, Philipp westerbarkei is regarded as one of the most promising directing talents of the younger generation. through his lens of visual and human connection, he explores his work with controversial and exciting depths and succeeds to engage his actors with bold concepts that testifies to the essence of theater. 

During his tenure at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, he worked with well-known directors such as Barrie Kosky, Stefan Herheim, Andreas Homoki, Claus Guth, Elisabeth Stöppler, Rolando Villazón, Guy Joosten and Nicolas Brieger. Westerbarkei was able to sharpen his own perspective and interpretation and was invited to direct a few productions of his own such as Gounod's “Roméo et Juliette“, Puccini's “La Bohème“ and Mieczylaw Weinberg’s "Masel tov! Wir gratulieren!“.  With the latter work, he was able to bring national attention to this unknown opera with an exciting and playful evening of theater that succeeded in helping the audience forget the restrictions of the corona pandemic. 

His production of Mozart's “Die Zauberflöte“ opened the 2018-2019 season at the Landestheater Coburg with a multi-layered interpretation of the stage classic and was met with great national  acclaim. Most recently, he celebrated great success with two works by Verdi: “Macbeth“ and "I due Foscari“.  Westerbarkei’s daring interpretation and set design of “Macbeth" opened the 2022-2023 season at the Stadttheater Bremerhaven. For the Heidenheimer Opernfestspiele, his socially critical and modern production of the opera rarity “I due Foscari“ challenged audiences with a “classic film noir with a great deal of cynicism and hopelessness (…) and puts our zeitgeist to the test.“

Philipp Westerbarkei studied theatre science and Italian literature at the Ruhr-Universität in Bochum.