Thomas Wilhelm received his training at the Palucca School in Dresden. As a dancer, he was engaged at the Dresden Semperoper, the Leipzig Opera and the Gothenburg Opera, among others, and worked in Stephan Thoss' dance company in Kiel and Hanover. This is also where he created his first choreographic works. He has been a freelance choreographer since 2006.
He has been working closely with director Christof Loy for many years. They have worked together on productions at opera houses in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Amsterdam, Geneva and Zurich, at Theater Basel, Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Oper Frankfurt, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, ROH Covent Garden in London, Opera de Monte-Carlo, Teatro Real in Madrid, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, the Salzburg Festival and the Festival d'Aix en Provence. His production of Britten's Peter Grimes at the Theater an der Wien won the International Opera Award in 2015.
He has also worked with Amélie Niermeyer and Sebastian Baumgarten, among others. He is closely associated with the director Nadja Loschky and has worked together at Theater Bielfeld (most recently Rossini's Barber of Seville) and at the Komische Oper Berlin (Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas)
Since Händel's Alcina at the 2019 Salzburg Whitsun Festival, he has worked regularly with Damiano Michieletto, including for Salome at La Scala in Milan, the world premiere of Le Baruffe at the Teatro la Fenice in Venice, Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice at the Komische Oper Berlin and Giulio Cesare at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. Last spring, they worked on the world premiere of Animal Farm, based on the novella by George Orwell, at the Amsterdam Opera (International Opera Award 2023 »Best World Premiere«).
At the Vienna State Opera he worked on the productions of Alceste by Ch. W. Gluck and Beethoven's Leonore.