ABOUT
Belgian stage director, librettist, dramaturg and set designer Mien Bogaert works across opera, orchestral music and contemporary music theatre. Since the 2026/27 season, he has been Concert Dramaturg and Concert Education Manager at the Deutsches Nationaltheater and Staatskapelle Weimar (Germany). Before joining the DNT, he worked as a dramaturg at the Klarafestival in Brussels and as dramaturg and coordinator of staged projects at the Belgian National Orchestra, where his responsibilities included concert dramaturgy, the development of staged orchestral productions and music education projects.
Alongside his institutional work, Mien Bogaert has built an international freelance career as a stage director, librettist and set designer. His work ranges from established operatic repertoire to newly created music theatre. Combining stage direction, dramaturgy and scenography, he creates visually distinctive productions that frequently incorporate self-built scenic elements and evolve through close collaboration with composers, performers and costume designers. Drawing on literature, history and documentary research, his work engages with contemporary questions such as migration, climate change and the changing idea of Europe.
His repertoire productions include Pergolesi’s La serva padrona and Hasse’s L’artigiano gentiluomo (OPSTAND, touring production in Belgium, 2018), Massenet’s Cendrillon (Lemmens Institute Leuven, 2019), Haydn’s Arianna a Naxos and L’isola disabitata (EDELWILD, Kopergietery Ghent, 2022), Poulenc’s La voix humaine (Royal Conservatoire Ghent, 2022), Mozart’s Don Giovanni (International Belcanto Academy, Utrecht, 2024) and Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (LUCA School of Arts Leuven, 2025). A recurring aspect of his practice is his collaboration with conservatoires and university vocal departments, where he enjoys working with emerging singers and supporting their transition to the professional stage.
Alongside these repertoire productions, Bogaert has developed a particular interest in contemporary opera and new music theatre. He directed and designed the world premiere of Harold Noben’s chamber opera À l’extrême bord du monde at La Monnaie / De Munt in Brussels, staged Christoph Breidler’s youth opera Malka Mai for the Landesbühnen Sachsen, and created the original opera Crash Flight together with composer Benjamien Lycke, for which he wrote the libretto, directed the production and designed the set.
Together with soprano and movement performer Liza Dedapper, he developed the concept of a highly mobile children’s opera for the Belgian opera company OPERAWERF, in which the entire production unfolds from a single trailer. The resulting productions, De kleine zeemeermin and Het klokkenmeisje, combine opera with circus and bring music theatre to audiences in public space.
A similar interest in flexible performance formats led to a long-term collaboration with the Berlin-based Compagnia Nuova. For its touring productions of La traviata, Tosca and Pagliacci / Le maschere, Mien Bogaert developed the concept of a complete opera set that folds into a single Euro pallet for transport and unfolds on stage into a full scenography. This minimalist system allows the productions to tour efficiently throughout the German-speaking region while maintaining a distinctive visual identity.
A recurring thread throughout his work is the dialogue between orchestral music and theatrical imagination. During his years at the Belgian National Orchestra, he conceived and developed numerous staged concert productions, most notably a large-scale theatrical realisation of Alfred Schnittke’s ballet Peer Gynt in collaboration with Bozar and Klarafestival, combining orchestra, dance, theatre and video into a single concert experience. He also initiated and coordinated award-winning music education projects and interdisciplinary collaborations, including À la vie, à la mort, recipient of a YAMA Award, and FIREBIRD, an artistic project exploring the long-term storage of radioactive waste.
Mien Bogaert studied Music and Theatre Studies at Ghent University and Music Theatre Directing at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre. He was a semi-finalist of the Ring Award (2020) and is a fellow of the Akademie Musiktheater heute. His work has been presented in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and the United Kingdom.
