Andrea Breth, born on 31 October 1952 in Rieden am Forggensee, Germany, is a distinguished stage director. She began her academic journey studying German and English language and literature at the University of Heidelberg from 1970 to 1972. Breth's formative years were spent in Darmstadt, and her initial directorial engagements spanned several cities, including Bremen, Wiesbaden, Hamburg, and Berlin, where she notably directed Lessing's Emilia Galotti at the Freie Volksbühne Berlin in 1981. Her career took her to the Zurich Schauspielakademie and Theater Neumarkt in Zurich as well.
From 1983 to 1985, Breth served as a director at Theater Freiburg, where her production of Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba earned her the first of several invitations to the prestigious Berlin Theatertreffen in 1985. That same year, she was named Director of the Year by Theater heute. Breth continued her work at Schauspielhaus Bochum from 1986 to 1989, where her productions of Green's South and Gorki's The Last Ones garnered her a second invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen.
In 1990 and 1992, she directed Kleist's Der zerbrochne Krug at the Burgtheater and O'Casey's The End of the Beginning at the Akademietheater. Breth took on the role of artistic director at the Schaubühne Berlin from 1992 to 1997, during which her productions of Vampilov's Last Summer in Chulimsk, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, and Chekhov's Uncle Vanya again earned her an invitation to the Berlin Theatertreffen.
From 1999 to 2006, Breth was a resident director at the Burgtheater, where she staged a variety of works, including Horváth's Der jüngste Tag, Kleist's Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, Schiller's Maria Stuart and Don Carlos, Ostermaier's Letzter Aufruf and Nach den Klippen, as well as Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm. Her directorial efforts at the Burgtheater continued from 2009 onwards with productions such as Simon Stephens' Motortown, Bernard-Marie Koltès' Quay West, and a co-production with the Salzburg Festival of Kleist's Prinz Friedrich von Homburg. She also directed Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins' This Story of You, Pinter's The Birthday Party, again in cooperation with the Salzburg Festival, and O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night. Breth received further invitations to the Berlin Theatertreffen with her productions of Lessing's Emilia Galotti and Schiller's Don Carlos.
In addition to her theater work, Andrea Breth directed Schnitzler's Das weite Land and Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment at the Salzburg Festival. In 2009, she directed Ostermaier's Blaue Spiegel at the Berliner Ensemble and Der zerbrochne Krug at the Ruhrtriennale. Her subsequent projects included Babel's Marija at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus in 2011, Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman at Schauspiel Frankfurt in 2013, and Pinter's The Caretaker at the Residenztheater in Munich in 2014.
Breth's contributions to opera since 2000 include directing Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice at the Leipzig Opera, Smetana's The Bartered Bride, and Wolfgang Rihm's Jakob Lenz at Stuttgart State Opera, as well as Bizet's Carmen at the Styriarte Festival in Graz, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at the Salzburg Festival, Janáček's Katya Kabanova, and Verdi's La Traviata at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. Her opera work also features Alban Berg's Lulu and Wozzeck, Cherubini's Medea at the Schiller Theater of the Berlin State Opera, and Verdi's Macbeth at De Nationale Opera in Amsterdam.
In the 2018/19 season, Andrea Breth directed Die Ratten by Gerhart Hauptmann at the Akademietheater and Lenz by Wolfgang Rihm at the festival of Aix.
