At the beginning of his international career Dresden-born conductor Michael Güttler had several sensational short-term appearances at the Mariinsky Theatre, substituting for Valery Gergiev in Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal.

After his musical education in violin, trumpet, piano, choral conducting and studies at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber (orchestra conducting), as well as numerous master classes (e.g. with Leonard Bernstein, Sergiu Celibidache, Miltiades Caridis, Ilya Musin, Valery Gergiev), he was accepted into the FÖRDERPROGRAMM DIRIGENTENFORUM DES DEUTSCHEN MUSIKRATES.

He was awarded the first prize of various conducting competitions (European Community competition Franco Capuana Spoleto (Italy) 1996; Bottega Treviso (Italy) 1994; International Conductors’ Forum Hamm 1993; Conduct for Dance London 1993 etc.). From 1998 to 2002 he was the youngest chief conductor of Austria at the Stadttheater Klagenfurt. He also held other principal conducting positions at the Opera House in Ekaterinburg (Russia) and the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki (until 2016).

From 2003 to 2017 he was Permanent Guest Conductor of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg (Ring, Parsifal, Tristan, Lohengrin, Der fliegende Holländer, Falstaff, Don Carlo, Aida, La Traviata, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Ariadne auf Naxos, Elektra, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Il Trittico, Lucia di Lammermoor etc.). He had a sensational success in May 2007, when he jumped in at very short notice at the Opéra de Paris with Lohengrin (cast including Waltraud Meier and Ben Heppner).

His repertoire is very extensive, his multilingualism (mother tongue German, Italian at native speaker level, English, Russian excellent, French very good) and his many years of professional experience at Italian, Russian and French theatres and orchestras provide him with the necessary prerequisites to develop authentic interpretations in the essential areas of the international opera repertoire.

His stylistic versatility, ranging from baroque to contemporary music, is also remarkable. He regularly works with first-class orchestras, choirs and soloists in the tradition of historical performance practice (Concerto Köln, Cappella Coloniensis) as well as with “standard” symphony orchestras.

Since 2010 he collaborates regularly with the Vienna State Opera, where he has conducted Rigoletto, Barbiere di Siviglia, Cenerentola, Ariadne auf Naxos, Nabucco, Werther, Onegin, Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina.

Engagements in the past seasons have taken him to the Finnish National Opera (Boris Godunov, Pelléas et Mélisande, Meistersinger, Aida, Die Nase etc.), to the opera houses of Lausanne and Chemnitz with new productions of Don Giovanni and Pique Dame, as well as to the opera festival in Glyndebourne, where he made his extremely successful debut with Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. He made a highly acclaimed debut at the Tyrolean Festival in Erl (Parsifal and Rossini’s Guillaume Tell).

Most recently he has appeared at the Vienna State Opera (Eugene Onegin, Lohengrin, Boris Godunov), Teatro alla Scala in Milan (Salome), the opera houses in Bari and Bologna, and at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden with opera productions (Tristan, Pique Dame, Nabucco) and concert projects. In the next season at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden he will conduct, among others, a new production of Lohengrin, several Ring des Nibelungen cycles, the revivals of Tannhäuser and Lady Macbeth of Mzensk, as well as several concert programs.