Tamas Detrich

Born in New York, Tamas Detrich is an American of Hungarian descent. He received his initial training at the National Academy of Ballet and Theater Arts, then with David Howard at the Harkness House of Ballet in New York and finally at the John Cranko School in Stuttgart from which he graduated in 1977.

In the same year Detrich joined the Stuttgart Ballet where his technical and dramatic abilities were quickly rewarded. He was promoted to soloist in 1980 and principal dancer in 1981. During his 25 years with the company, he has danced all the leading roles of John Cranko’s ballets and enraptured audiences around the world with his portrayals of Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Onegin and Lenski in Onegin, and Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. Furthermore, he danced Armand Duval in  Lady of the Camellias (John Neumeier), leading roles in The Song of the Earth and Requiem (Kenneth MacMillan),  Arena and Voluntaries (Glen Tetley), and La Sylphide (Peter Schaufuss), as well as in ballets by some of the most significant choreographers of the 20th century: George Balanchine, Maurice Béjart, Hans van Manen, William Forsythe, and Uwe Scholz.

The following choreographers have created roles for him: Jiří Kylián (Forgotten Land, Stepping Stones), Uwe Scholz (Variation -I), Maurice Béjart (Operette), and David Bintley (Landscape and Memory). Marcia Haydée created the roles of Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty and Albrecht in Giselle and the Wilis for him.

In addition, Detrich was highly esteemed as a guest dancer performed at major opera houses around the world, including the Bolshoi Theatre (Moscow), Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Metropolitan Opera (New York), Paris Opera, and the Mariinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg).

At the beginning of the 2001-02 season, Detrich became a Ballet Master of the Stuttgart Ballet. In 2004 Artistic Director Reid Anderson appointed Detrich Artistic Associate of the Stuttgart Ballet, and in 2009 he was appointed Associate Artistic Director of the Stuttgart Ballet.

Tamas Detrich has taught, staged, and revived John Cranko’s ballets for the Stuttgart Ballet and other companies such as the Paris Opera Ballet, the Vienna State Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and Dutch National Ballet Amsterdam, as well as in Budapest and Stockholm. He has also staged John Neumeier’s A Streetcar Named Desire for the Hamburg Ballet, Norwegian National Ballet in Oslo, and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, as well as Neumeier’s Othello for the Stuttgart Ballet. In addition, he has staged Marcia Haydée’s Sleeping Beauty for the Royal Ballet of Flanders and Kenneth MacMillan’s Song of the Earth for the Ballet de Santiago de Chile.

In July 2015, the Board of Directors of the State Theater Stuttgart voted unanimously to appoint Detrich Artistic Director of the Stuttgart Ballet as of September 2018. In his years at the company’s helm, he has continued to promote Cranko’s repertoire in Stuttgart and abroad and has mounted over 35 new works from leading choreographers. He has brought full-length productions to Stuttgart, including Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling, the world premiere of Edward Clug’s The Nutcracker, and John Neumeier’s Anna Karenina. He promotes emerging choreographers from within the company, has introduced platforms for new works such as the CREATIONS evenings in Stuttgart’s Schauspielhaus, and has led the company on successful international tours throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States.