Axel Köhler has been Rector of the Stuttgart State University of Music and Performing Arts since December 2023. From 2019 to 2023, he held the same position at the Carl Maria von Weber University of Music Dresden.
Axel Köhler was born in Schwarzenberg in the Ore Mountains in 1960. He studied violin pedagogy and singing at the Dresden University of Music. His musical career initially took him to the ensemble of the Halle Opera, and in the course of his artistic
guest appearances at the Semperoper Dresden, the Bavarian State Opera, the Hamburg State Opera, the Royal Opera House
London, the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival. He was honored with the Handel Prize in 1994 and was appointed Kammersänger in 1998.
From 2009 to 2016, Axel Köhler was artistic director and later artistic director of the Halle Opera. Since 2000, Köhler has also worked as a
director, staging productions in Munich, Bayreuth, Innsbruck, Dresden, Palermo and Graz,
Dresden, Palermo and Graz. He celebrated his greatest success at the Semperoper Dresden with the production of "Der Freischütz" under the baton of Christian Thielemann, which won the Bachtrack Opera Award 2015 as the world's best production. As a singer and director, he often and gladly turned his attention to the next generation of musical stage talent, took on master classes, was a jury member at national and international competitions and directed university productions.