Born in Frankfurt am Main, he studied philosophy, German philology, and theater studies in Munich, later specializing in theater and opera stage direction. His Mozart productions at the Salzburg Festival (Salzburger Festspiele), particularly the cycle dedicated to the Da Ponte operas, established his international reputation. He has collaborated with some of the world’s most prestigious opera houses, including Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper), Opernhaus Zürich, Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Bavarian State Opera (Bayerische Staatsoper) in Munich, the Bayreuth Festival, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Park Avenue Armory, the Opéra National de Paris, the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. He was awarded the prestigious FAUST Prize for his productions of Pelléas et Mélisande and Daphne at Oper Frankfurt. His staging of Jenůfa at the Royal Opera House won the 2022 Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production, while Bluthaus at the Bavarian State Opera received the 2022 Austrian Music Theater Prize for Best International Production. In 2023, he was honored with the Oper! Award for Best Director, and in November 2025, he received the International Opera Award for Director of the Year. His work in Wagnerian music theater is highly significant. Among his major productions are Lohengrin at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Tannhäuser at the Vienna State Opera, Tristan und Isolde at Opernhaus Zürich, and Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Hamburg State Opera (Staatsoper Hamburg). He has also staged numerous world premieres, including Michael Jarrell’s Berenice at the Opéra National de Paris, Beat Furrer’s Violetter Schnee at Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Pascal Dusapin’s Lullaby Experience at Frankfurt LAB, Chaya Czernowin’s Heart Chamber at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Czernowin’s Pnima…Ins Innere at the Munich Biennale (Münchener Biennale), Peter Ruzicka’s Celan at the Semperoper Dresden, Georg Friedrich Haas’s Bluthaus at the Bavarian State Opera, Pascal Dusapin’s Il Viaggio, Dante at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and Brett Dean’s Of One Blood at the Bavarian State Opera. In 2026, he won the Austrian Music Theater Prize (Der Österreichische Musiktheaterpreis) for Best Directing for Herzog Blaubarts Burg / La voix humaine.