Dominique Horwitz was born in Paris in 1957 and grew up in the French capital. In 1971, his family moved to Berlin, where he attended the German-French Gymnasium. On the recommendation of a friend, he appeared on television for the first time at the age of nineteen, and shortly afterwards made his big screen debut as Leo Singer in Peter Lilienthal's award-winning film “David.”

In 1978, Horwitz took a one-year break to perform cabaret at Berlin's CaDeWe (Cabaret des Westens), followed by an engagement at the Zimmertheater in Tübingen from 1979 to 1983. In 1985, he was under contract at the Bavarian State Theater in Munich and from 1985 to 1988 also at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg.

Dieter Wedel brought him back in front of the camera for “Der große Bellheim,” where he finally achieved his international breakthrough in 1993 with the leading role in Josef Vilsmaier's “Stalingrad.” Since then, he has appeared in many film and television productions, but has remained equally loyal to the stage. He has appeared in “The Black Rider” directed by Robert Wilson, “The Threepenny Opera” directed by Katharina Thalbach, and “Moonlight” by Harold Pinter directed by Peter Zadek, among others. In the spring of 2023, Dominique Horwitz made his debut at the Vienna Volksoper in the lead role of ‘Tevye’ in “Anatevka.”

Having grown up with Jacques Brel's chansons, Dominique Horwitz decided in 1984 to put together and present an evening of songs by the great chansonnier. It was a success story that earned him reviews saying that his interpretation was better than Brel's own. In the spring of 2017, “Horwitz sings Brel” was performed for the first time at the Vienna Musikverein, and since the fall of 2021, a version for small orchestra has been added to the existing arrangements for large orchestra and six-piece bands.

His keen sense of music makes Dominique Horwitz one of the most sought-after artists in the musical-literary genre: Whether it's Schoenberg's “A Survivor from Warsaw,” Stravinsky's “The Soldier's Tale,” Beethoven's “Egmont,” Mendelssohn's “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” or the whale hunter “Ahab” from the symphonic stage parable of the same name based on Melville – Horwitz sings, plays, and speaks the characters of these evenings with incomparable intensity.
Dominique Horwitz has also recorded numerous works, including the melodramas “Antigone,” “Athalia,” and “Oedipus” by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy with the MDR Symphony Orchestra, as well as “The Soldier's Tale” with soloists from the Berlin Philharmonic.

The artists with whom Dominique Horwitz collaborates on a variety of occasions include Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Christoph Eschenbach, and Isabelle Faust. In the summer of 2025, he brought the internationally acclaimed new production of Stravinsky's “Histoire du Soldat” with the Salzburg Marionette Theater to the stage of the Salzburg Festival – the stage design and puppets for this production were created by Georg Baselitz. Other projects for the 2025/26 season include the continuation of his Brel Chansons program, a tour with the Basel Chamber Orchestra, Giovanni Antonini, and Anett Fritsch (Beethoven's Egmont), and his new project—a poetic journey into the world of Maurice Ravel; between fairy tale, dream, and reality – with Christiane Karg (soprano), Ulrike Payer (piano), and the Aris Quartet.

In January 2012, Horwitz made his opera directing debut with Weber's “Freischütz” at the Theater Erfurt. In 2018, he directed the operetta revue “Moskau, Tscherjomuschki” at the Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen, and in 2019, he staged Strauss' “Ariadne auf Naxos” at the Mainfranken Theater Würzburg. In 2015, he made his debut as an author with the crime novel “Tod in Weimar” (Death in Weimar), followed in 2018 by the novel “Chanson d'Amour.” Horwitz was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Actor in 1992 and received the Mephisto Prize in 2002 for his Brel chanson program.

2025/2026