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Christoph Schlingensief’s work in musical theatre can be considered as postdramatic theatre, as the term was defined by Hans-Thies Lehmann in 1999. Thus, too, Schlingensief’s theatre productions may be understood as avant garde: like historical avant gardes of the 20th century, Schlingensief’s understanding of theatre is strongly opposed to a traditional, drama-centred notion of theatre. His antagonism is also directed against the aesthetics of so-called ‚director’s theatre‘, which has dominated the performance practice of opera and musical theatre in general in the German-speaking countries since the early 1970s. The paper understands Schlingensief’s music-theatre productions as a postdramatic musical theatre which expresses opposition, inter alia, to director’s theatre. The paper tries to show how this performance practice can be not just different, but also avant garde.