WhO's Tom?
Belgian director Tom Goossens (1994) began studying drama at KASK Ghent in 2012. From his third bachelor year onwards, he focused on operadirecting. His graduation production Don Juan, an adaptation of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Molière’s Don Juan, was immediately selected for the mainprogramme of Theater Aan Zee, the Jonge Harten Festival in Groningen and Operadagen Rotterdam. Alongside his own artistic practice, he assisted theatre and opera makers including Guy Joosten, Johan Simons, Comp. Marius and FC Bergman.
From 2018, Goossens became a resident artist at Translab, the young makers’ programme of Muziektheater Transparant. Within Translab and his own company DESCHONECOMPANIE (DSC), he created Così and Le Nozze, which together with Don Juan form DEDAPONTETRILOGIE: three adaptations of Mozart’s operas basedon libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte. The trilogy was presented by, among others, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, La Monnaie/De Munt, Operadagen Rotterdam and Theater Aan Zee. For DSC, Goossens also created and directed Rigoletto (2021), De Barbier (2022), Jupi (2024) and Falstaff (2025), opera adaptations that toured extensively throughout Flanders. In Rigoletto, he also appeared on stage himself, both in the Dutch-language and French-language versions, which were presented at Opéra Grand Avignon and Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris, among others.
All these productions premiered on location, often outdoors, a context that has become one of Goossens’s specialities. At Donkmeer, he created a version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2023 with SymphonyOrchestra Flanders on a lake. Like many of his other productions, it later received an indoor theatre version, with music performed by Casco Phil.
With Jupi, a radical adaptation of Handel’s oratorio Semele, Goossens created his second production for children. His first children’s production, Banket! Of De Wraak Op De Macbeths, was created in 2019 at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen and marked the beginning of his collaboration with the house. There, he went on to create a semi-staged production of Kurt Weill’s Der Jasager and his first opera direction with symphony orchestra: Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole. In 2023, he directed his first opera in Opera Ballet Vlaanderen’s main programme, Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, followed by Don Giovanni in 2025. He also provided semi-staged direction and connecting texts for several concerts there, including Die Fledermaus and Peer Gynt. In 2025, Goossens received his first international directing engagement at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden with La Traviata.
Together with theatre maker Mitch Van Landeghem and music-theatre collective Les Âmes Perdues, Goossens carried out two genre-based investigations into operetta and whodunits, resulting in the popular productions Fledermaus Forever (2023) and Killer Thriller (2025). After premiering at Zomer van Antwerpen, the productions went on to play in both large and small theatres, including NTGent, KVS and Toneelhuis.
Goossens combines his artistic practice with teaching at the Ghent Conservatoire, where he teaches Music-Theatrical Training to classical voice students, as well as several modules on writing and performing music theatre.
