Nicola Panzer studied Music theatre directing with Götz Friedrich at Hamburg’s Academy of Music. After graduating cum laude, she became an assistant and evening director at the Hamburg State Opera. Soon she began working at international opera houses such as the Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, the Opéra national de Paris, Teatro Real Madrid, the National Theatre in Moscow, NHK Tokyo, as well as in Antwerp, Tel Aviv, Toronto, São Paulo, and at festivals in Spoleto, Salzburg and Bayreuth. An independent opera director since 1998, she has staged Stockhausen’s Aus den sieben Tagen and five productions in the Opera Piccola series at the Hamburg State Opera. Other productions include Hänsel und Gretel in Dortmund; Riders to the Sea and Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Frankfurt; The Bartered Bride in Linz; Nabucco at the Opera Festival Immling; Les Mamelles de Tirésias in Leipzig; Le nozze di Figaro, Il barbiere di Siviglia and The Magic Flute in Daejeon, South Korea; as well as L’elisir d’amore in Rostock. 

Her collaboration with Robert Wilson began in 1988 in Hamburg with Cosmopolitan Greetings, a multimedia jazz opera, and Parsifal by Richard Wagner. She has co-directed numerous Wilson productions since, both in dramatic theatre and opera. Recently, she worked as co-director for Turandot in Madrid, Paris, and Vilnius, and on a new piece by Robert Wilson, Philip Glass, and Lucinda Childs entitled H – 100 Seconds to Midnight at the Thalia Theater Hamburg and at the Theatre Festival in Wuchang, China. In 2026, future projects will bring her back to Houston Grand Opera for Messiah and to the Vilnius National Opera for the world premiere of a new opera by Zibuoklė Martinaiytė.