Fabio Luisi launches new era at Zurich Opera, leads the Met in Verdi and Berlioz

Oct 31, 2012 by admin

“Luisi comes across as a musician in charge of a production happening in the moment, someone always aware of the instincts and needs of the performers.” — New York Times

Italian conductor Fabio Luisi, who holds top posts at the Metropolitan Opera and the Vienna Symphony, began his 2012-13 season by launching a new era as music director of the Zurich Opera. The season-opening Zurich performances of Janácek’s Jenufa were declared by Music Web International to be “auspicious.” Jenufa is the first of five operas Luisi will lead in Zurich this season, with Verdi’s Rigoletto and Puccini’s La bohème in February and March, then Bellini’s La straniera and Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier in June and July. Luisi kicks off his second season as principal conductor at the Met on November 8 with a new production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. In the space of just three months, he will also conduct Verdi’s Aida and Berlioz’s epic Les Troyens at the Met, as well as an orchestral concert of Beethoven, Stravinsky and Gubaidulina with the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall (on Dec 2). Luisi will conclude his eight-year tenure as chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony this season, leading concerts in January and March that range from Bruckner to Britten, Strauss to Stravinsky.

The glowing Music Web International review of last month’s Jenufa in Zurich singled out Luisi’s leadership: “Musically, the production is a triumph. Luisi conducts for all he is worth … The orchestra plays at their very best for him.” The conductor himself commented afterward: “There was such a great spirit in the house for the first performance of Jenufa – the cast is amazing, the orchestra and chorus are wonderful, and I’ve been so impressed by everyone’s enthusiasm and hard work. It’s going to be a great season at Zurich Opera. We started strongly, and we will continue the same way.”

For Luisi, working with top singers in Zurich is a given, he says, but bringing in new directors will also be an important focus for him. “We are starting a new era, a new age, a new time,” says the conductor. “Zurich has taken a more traditional approach in the last 20 years, with a focus on the big stars, the big singers. General director Andreas Homoki is inviting many new and interesting directors, some of them young rising stars.” Among those paired with Luisi in new productions for 2012-13 are director Tatjana Gürbaca, whose Rigoletto will feature Aleksandra Kurzak as Gilda and Quinn Kelsey in the title role. Also working with Luisi this season is Christof Loy, who will stage Bellini’s rarely performed La straniera, starring Edita Gruberova as Alaide. Luisi is also putting a new focus on presenting orchestral masterworks with the freshly renamed Philharmonia Zurich, focusing this season on the music of Schumann. Four of the seven Philharmonia concerts will be conducted by Luisi, with Schumann’s oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri as the culmination of the concert season.

Last season, the New York Times praised Luisi’s conducting at the Met as “exciting, insightful, assured.” Luisi’s “year two” as principal conductor at the Met launches in grand fashion on November 8 when he leads the new production of Un ballo in maschera directed by David Alden and starring Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick, Marcelo Álvarez and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Un ballo in maschera runs until Dec 14. Luisi also conducts what he calls “two of my favorite operas”: Aida, with Olga Borodina and Roberto Alagna (Nov 23-Dec 28), and Les Troyens (Dec 13-Jan 5), with the vast Berlioz epic returning for the first time since 2003 and starring Deborah Voigt, Susan Graham, Marcello Giordani and Dwayne Croft. All three of these operas will also be broadcast live worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series. Luisi returns to the Met in April and May for three complete presentations of Wagner’s four-opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen. About returning to the Met, Luisi says: “I just finished two days of intense rehearsals for Les Troyens, and the orchestra of the Met is in magnificent shape!” On December 2, the conductor leads the Met Orchestra in a Carnegie Hall performance of Sofia Gubaidulina’s In tempus praesens and Stravinsky’s Suite from The Firebird, along with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor” with soloist Yefim Bronfman.

Later this season, Luisi presents his valedictory concerts as the head of the Vienna Symphony, which he has led as chief conductor since 2005. Looking forward to exploring repertoire both fresh and familiar, Luisi says: “I can’t wait to work together with my colleagues at the Vienna Symphony again in January!” The concerts feature top soloists, including pianist Rudolf Buchbinder and tenor Rolando Villazón. The concerts pair Schubert and Bruckner, Brahms and Britten, Strauss and Stravinsky, Respighi and Rota, plus works by Kuhr, Einem and Marx.

Luisi’s jam-packed fall comes after a spring and summer that saw the conductor lead Massenet’s Manon for his debut at La Scala, where he will return in fall 2013 to conduct Verdi’s Don Carlo. Following this summer’s La Scala performances, Luisi joined the Scala Philharmonic for a German and Russian festival tour of works by Verdi, Brahms and Rachmaninoff. Summer 2012 also found Luisi in Sapporo, Japan, where he led concerts and master classes in his role as artistic director of the Pacific Music Festival.

A native of Genoa, Italy, Fabio Luisi studied piano at the city’s Conservatorio Nicolò Paganini and in Paris with Aldo Ciccolini, before training as a conductor under Milan Horvat at Austria’s Graz High School of Music. Luisi has formerly held top posts with some of Europe’s most respected orchestras. He was general music director of the Dresden State Opera and Dresden Staatskapelle; music director of Leipzig’s MDR Symphony Orchestra; music director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande; chief conductor of Vienna’s Tonkünstler Orchestra; and music director of the Graz Symphony. More information about him is available here.

Fabio Luisi: upcoming engagements: 2012-13 season

Nov 8, 12, 15, 19, 24, 27, 30, Dec 4, 8, 14

New York, NY

Metropolitan Opera

Verdi: Un ballo in maschera

Fabio Luisi launches new era at Zurich Opera, leads the Met in Verdi and Berlioz

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