Born in New York, Tamas Detrich is an American of Hungarian background. He received his initial training at the National Academy of Ballet and Theater Arts, then with David Howard at the Harkness House of Ballet in New York and finally at the John Cranko School in Stuttgart from which he graduated in 1977.
In the same year he joined the Stuttgart Ballet where his technical and dramatic abilities were quickly rewarded. He was promoted to soloist in 1980 and principal dancer in 1981. During his 25 years with the company he has danced all the leading roles of John Cranko’s ballets and has enraptured audiences around the world with his portrayals of Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, Onegin and Lenski in Onegin, Petrucchio in The Taming of the Shrew. Furthermore he has danced Armand Duval in The Lady of the Camellias (John Neumeier), leading roles in The Song of the Earth and Requiem (Sir Kenneth MacMillan), Arena and Voluntaries (Glen Tetley), La Sylphide (Peter Schaufuss) as well as in ballets by the most significant contemporary choreographers: George Balanchine, Maurice Béjart, Hans van Manen, William Forsythe, and Uwe Scholz.
The following choreographers have created roles for him: Jiří Kylián (Forgotten Land, Stepping Stones), Uwe Scholz (Variation -I), David Bintley (Landscape and Memory) and Kevin O´Day (dreamdeepdown). Marcia Haydée created the roles of Prince Désiré in The Sleeping Beauty and Albrecht in Giselle and the Wilis for him.
In addition, Tamas Detrich was highly esteemed as a guest dancer. His guest appearances included companies such as the Scottish Ballet, the Ballet of Santiago de Chile, the Ballet of the German Opera Berlin, the Bavarian State Ballet, the Hong Kong Ballet and Galas worldwide from Washington D.C. to Tokyo. He performed at the major opera houses around the world, among them the Bolshoi Theatre (Moscow), Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires), Metropolitan Opera (New York), Paris Opera and the Mariinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg). He counts international ballet stars such as Márcia Haydée, Birgit Keil, Susan Jaffe, Cynthia Harvey, Monique Ludier, Eva Evdokimova and Noëlla Pontois among his dance partners throughout his career.
Tamas Detrich received the Critic Award “Best Artist” of Santiago de Chile in 1987. In 1998 he was awarded the national title „Kammertaenzer“; in the fall of 1999 he was awarded the John Cranko Prize. At the beginning of the 2001-02 season, he became a Ballet Master of the Stuttgart Ballet and at the end of the season he retired from Stage with a farewell performance of John Cranko’s Onegin. Since the 2002-03 season, Tamas Detrich is ballet master of the Stuttgart Ballet.
In 2004 Artistic Director Reid Anderson appointed Tamas Detrich Artistic Associate of the Stuttgart Ballet, in 2009 he has been appointed Associate Artistic Director of the Stuttgart Ballet.
Tamas Detrich has taught, staged and revived John Cranko’s ballets Romeo and Juliet and Onegin for Stuttgart Ballet and other companies such as the Paris Opera and the Vienna Opera Ballet. He has also staged John Neumeier’s Othello for Stuttgart Ballet, Marcia Haydée's The Sleeping Beauty for the Royal Ballet of Flanders and John Neumeier’s A Streetcar named Desire for Hamburg Ballet as well as for the Norwegian National Ballet in Oslo.
Tamas Detrich is married to the former principal dancer Marion Jaeger and is the father of twins.