Jan Lauwers
Jan Lauwers (born in 1957 in Antwerp, Belgium) works across virtually all artistic disciplines. Over the past thirty years, he has become particularly renowned for his pioneering stage work with Needcompany, founded in Brussels in 1986. Works created during this period have been presented, among others, at BOZAR (Brussels) and McaM (Shanghai, China).
From 2009 to 2014, Needcompany served as Artist-in-Residence at the Burgtheater in Vienna. In 2012, Jan Lauwers was awarded the “Golden Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria,” followed in 2014 by the “Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement” of the Venice Biennale – making him the first Belgian to receive this prize in the theatre category.
In 2018, he presented his first opera production at the Salzburg Festival with L’incoronazione di Poppea. Jan Lauwers studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium. At the end of 1979, together with a group of like-minded artists, he founded the Epigonenensemble, which in 1981 was transformed into the collective Epigonentheater zlv. With six stage productions, the group attracted considerable attention and marked Lauwers’ international breakthrough.
Epigonentheater zlv presented immediate, concrete, and highly visual theatre, in which music and language functioned as structuring elements. Together with Grace Ellen Barkey, Lauwers founded Needcompany, an international collective in which a wide range of artistic personalities collaborate in multifaceted ways.
Since 2001, Maarten Seghers has also been a member of Needcompany, contributing not only his distinctive presence as a performer but also his compositions, which play a significant role in the productions of Jan Lauwers and Grace Ellen Barkey. Since its foundation in 1986, both the collective and its performers have achieved international acclaim. The productions have regularly been performed in several languages; in the early works, the primary focus lay on visual elements, while later productions increasingly placed the narrative itself at the centre.
Through his work in recent years, Lauwers has redefined the concept of the postdramatic.
Performances with Jan Lauwers
with Katleho Mokhoabane, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Slávka Zámečníková, Kate Lindsey, Patricia Nolz, Peter Kellner, Conductor: Cornelius Meister
La clemenza di Tito
Cast on Sunday 20. September 2026
Abo 23
Ticket information
Einen Wochentag und Lieblingsplätze wählen und fünf Vorstellungen in einer Saison genießen.
In diesem Abo sind folgende Vorstellungen enthalten:
| 26. Oktober 2025 | Kallirhoe (Ballett) |
| 23. November 2025 | Dialogues des Carmélites |
| 18. Jänner 2026 | Le nozze di Figaro |
| 01. März 2026 | Luisa Miller |
| 31. Mai 2026 | Eugen Onegin |
| 20. September 2026 | La clemenza di Tito |
| 25. Oktober 2026 | L'Orfeo |
| 17. Jänner 2027 | Don Carlos |
| 11. April 2027 | Tristan und Isolde |
| 02. Mai 2027 | Woolf Works |
with Katleho Mokhoabane, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Slávka Zámečníková, Kate Lindsey, Patricia Nolz, Peter Kellner, Conductor: Cornelius Meister
La clemenza di Tito
Cast on Wednesday 23. September 2026
Abo 11
Ticket information
Einen Wochentag und Lieblingsplätze wählen und fünf Vorstellungen in einer Saison genießen.
In diesem Abo sind folgende Vorstellungen enthalten:
| 01. Oktober 2025 | Il barbiere di Siviglia |
| 03. Dezember 2025 | Věc Makropulos |
| 11. März 2026 | Don Pasquale |
| 08. April 2026 | Parsifal |
| 27. Mai 2026 | Manon (Ballett) |
| 23. September 2026 | La clemenza di Tito |
| 18. November 2026 | Madama Butterfly |
| 16. Dezember 2026 | Onegin |
| 07. April 2027 | Manon Lescaut |
| 05. Mai 2027 | Die tote Stadt |
with Katleho Mokhoabane, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Slávka Zámečníková, Kate Lindsey, Patricia Nolz, Peter Kellner, Conductor: Cornelius Meister
La clemenza di Tito
Cast on Saturday 26. September 2026
with Katleho Mokhoabane, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Slávka Zámečníková, Kate Lindsey, Patricia Nolz, Peter Kellner, Conductor: Cornelius Meister
La clemenza di Tito
Cast on Tuesday 29. September 2026
Abo 4
Ticket information
Einen Wochentag und Lieblingsplätze wählen und fünf Vorstellungen in einer Saison genießen.
In diesem Abo sind folgende Vorstellungen enthalten:
| 28. Oktober 2025 | Kallirhoe (Ballett) |
| 25. November 2025 | Lucia di Lammermoor |
| 23. Dezember 2025 | Elektra |
| 17. März 2026 | Madama Butterfly |
| 16. Juni 2026 | Animal Farm |
| 29. September 2026 | La clemenza di Tito |
| 22. Dezember 2026 | Les Pêcheurs de perles |
| 16. März 2027 | Visionary Dances |
| 04. Mai 2027 | Carmen |
| 01. Juni 2027 | Arabella |