Barrie Kosky became artistic director and chief director of the Komische Oper Berlin in 2012. At the end of his first season, the Komische Oper Berlin was voted Opera House of the Year in the Opernwelt magazine critics' poll, and in 2016 he was named Director of the Year in the same poll. In 2014, he received the International Opera Award as Director of the Year, and the following year, Komische Oper Berlin was honored with the International Opera Award in the Ensemble of the Year category. In 2017, his Bayreuth production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was voted Performance of the Year in the »Opernwelt« critics' poll. In 2020, the critics of the magazine »Die deutsche Bühne« voted him best opera director.
Engagements as an opera director have taken Barrie Kosky to the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, where, following new productions of Die schweigsame Frau, Der feurige Engel and Agrippina, he most recently successfully staged Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier in 2021. He has also directed at the Royal Opera House in London (The Nose and Carmen), the Opéra national de Paris (Prince Igor), the Glyndebourne Festival (Saul), Oper Frankfurt (Dido and Aeneas/Bluebeard's Castle, Carmen and Salome), the Dutch National Opera Amsterdam (Armide), the Opéra de Dijon (Les Boréades) and the Opernhaus Zürich (La fanciulla del West, Macbeth, Die Gezeichneten and Boris Godunov). In 2017, he made his successful debut at the Bayreuth Festival with Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. In 2019, he made his acclaimed debut at the Salzburg Festival with Orphée aux enfers. In May 2021, Le Coq d'Or celebrated its premiere at the Opéra de Lyon, a co-production with the festival in Aix-en-Provence, where it had to be canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. His productions have also been shown at the Teatro Real Madrid, Vienna State Opera, Royal Danish Opera, Los Angeles Opera, English National Opera in London, Australian Opera Sydney, Graz Opera, Hanover State Opera, Theater Basel, Aalto Theater Essen, Deutsches Theater Berlin and Schauspielhaus Frankfurt.
Barrie Kosky was Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival in Australia in 1996 and directed at Opera Australia, Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company and at the international festivals in Sydney and Melbourne. From 2001 to 2005 he was co-director of the Schauspielhaus Vienna.