The University of Music Würzburg is pleased to welcome Mr. Michiel Dijkema as Visiting Professor for Scenic Direction Opera School for the winter semester 2025/26. The professorship is funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with funds from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The programme aims to promote the internationalization of German universities and to strengthen the international dimension in teaching.

The Dutch director and stage designer Michiel Dijkema studied piano with Danièle Dechenne at the University of Music Amsterdam and with Alexander Warenberg and Alwin Bär at the Utrecht University of the Arts. He then studied music theater directing at the University of Music "Hanns Eisler" Berlin. He was active as a Lied accompanist and attended the Lied classes of Thom Bollen in Utrecht and Wolfram Rieger in Berlin.

Michiel Dijkema has staged (direction and stage design) Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (Dutch Touring Opera), Bizet's Carmen (Eisenach and Meiningen), Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (Dutch Touring Opera), Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (Stockholm), Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire (Rotterdam), Strauss'Die Fledermaus (Eisenach, Moscow and Tallinn), Marschner's Der Vampyr (Amsterdam), Rossini's Il Turco in Italia (Leipzig), Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (Gelsenkirchen), Rossini's La Cenerentola (Tallinn and Dutch Touring Opera), Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel (Gelsenkirchen), Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Wiesbaden and Antibes), Puccini's Tosca (Leipzig), Thomas'Hamlet (Zagreb), Gassmann's L'Opera Seria (Hanover), Smetana's Die verkaufte Braut (Wiesbaden), Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci (Darmstadt), Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer (Wiesbaden), Offenbach's Orpheus in der Unterwelt (Kiel), Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Hanover), Gounod's Faust (Leipzig and Bolzano), Offenbach's Pariser Leben (Volksoper Wien), Strauss'Salome (Wuppertal), the world premiere of Isidora Žebeljan's Nahod Simon (Gelsenkirchen), Lehár's Die Lustige Witwe (Linz), Kálmán's Die Herzogin von Chicago (Koblenz), Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Semperoper Dresden), Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann (Gelsenkirchen), Dvorák's Rusalka (Leipzig), Haydn's Il mondo della luna (University of Music Würzburg Berlin), Stephan Peiffer's Vom Ende der Unschuld (International May Festival Wiesbaden), Louis Spohr's Faust (Koblenz), Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer (Leipzig), Weinberger's Schwanda, der Dudelsackpfeifer (Gelsenkirchen), Puccini's Turandot (Magdeburg), Prokofiev's L'amour des trois oranges (Koblenz), Haydn's L'isola disabitata as a triple bill with Krenek's What Price Confidence and Haydn's Arianna a Naxos (Amsterdam/The Hague), Puccini's Madama Butterfly (Reykjavík), Wagner's Lohengrin (Tallinn), Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims (Aachen), Verdi's La traviata (Mönchengladbach and Krefeld), Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers (Aachen) and Cavalli's Il Giasone (Münster).

Michiel Dijkema has won various international opera directing prizes: the second European Opera Directing Prize, the first Peter Konwitschny Young Director's Prize for his concept for Carmen and the Eesti Teatrikunsti Muusikalavastuste Award for his production of La Cenerentola. This award is considered the most important Estonian prize in the field of musical theater. The stage design for Il Barbiere di Siviglia won the first Wizard Award in Berlin. His production of Der fliegende Holländer was nominated for the International Opera Awards 2022 in Madrid as part of the Leipzig festival WAGNER22. Il viaggio a Reims was honored by "Der Opernfreund" in the category best stage design/best costumes 2023/24. His production of Lohengrin was nominated for the Estonian Music Prize 2024.

He taught the opera class at the ArtEZ University of Music. He has also worked as a visiting professor at the University of Music "Hanns Eisler" Berlin, teaching voice students and music theater directing students. As part of an interdisciplinary initiative, he lectured at the Estonian University of Music and Drama in Tallinn. He also worked at the Dutch National Opera Academy (a collaboration between the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag).

Future premieres and revivals include the Theater Aachen, the Potsdam Sanssouci Music Festival, the Vanemuine Teater in Tartu, the Saaremaa Opera Festival, the Innsbruck Early Music Festival, the Estonian National Opera in Tallinn, the Leipzig Opera, the Hanover State Opera, the Magdeburg Theatre and the Semperoper Dresden.

Michiel Dijkema lives near Amsterdam with his wife and eleven-year-old son. He has cycled from Amsterdam to Rome, Santiago de Compostela, Venice, Vienna, London, Barcelona and Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, among other places. In spring 2022, he cycled from Amsterdam to Paris with his then 7-year-old son. In 2023, they cycled together from Amsterdam (via Bayreuth) to Budapest and in the summer of 2025 from Amsterdam across the Alps to Venice.