Iván Fischer

conductor, Music Director

Conductor, composer, opera director, thinker and educator, anchored in the tradition of the great musical polymaths, Iván Fischer is considered one of the most visionary musicians of our time.

His focus is always the music, and to this end, he has developed several new concert formats and reformed the structure and working method of the symphony orchestra. In the mid-1980s he founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra, where he has since introduced and established numerous innovations. He envisions a pool of musicians serving the community in various combinations and musical styles.

His work as Music Director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra has developed into one of the greatest musical success stories of the last 30 years. With international tours and a series of recordings for Philips Classics and Channel Classics, he has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most celebrated orchestral conductors, for whom tradition and innovation go hand in hand.

He has founded a number of festivals, including the Budapest Mahlerfest, the Bridging Europe festival and the Vicenza Opera Festival. The World Economic Forum presented him with the Crystal Award for his achievements in fostering international cultural relations.

He was principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, the Opéra National de Lyon and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the latter appointing him Conductor Laureate. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra named him Honorary Guest Conductor following many decades of working together. He is a frequent guest conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Iván Fischer studied the piano, violin and cello in Budapest, before joining the legendary conducting class of Hans Swarowsky in Vienna. Having spent two years as assistant to Nikolaus Harnoncourt, he then launched his international career as winner of the Rupert Foundation conducting competition in London.

After various guest appearances at international opera houses, he founded the Ivan Fischer Opera Company. His staging always sets as its goal an organic unity between music and theatre. IFOC productions, which often spatially connect the instrumentalists and singers, have been received with great acclaim in recent years in New York, Edinburgh, Abu Dhabi, Berlin, Geneva and Budapest.

Iván Fischer has been active as a composer since 2004, writing mostly vocal music with instrumental ensembles. His opera The Red Heifer made headlines across the world; the children’s opera The Gruffalo enjoyed numerous revivals in Berlin; his most frequently performed work, “Eine Deutsch-Jiddische Kantate” has been performed and recorded in several countries.

Iván Fischer is founder of the Hungarian Mahler Society and patron of the British Kodály Academy. The president of the Republic of Hungary awarded him the Gold Medal, and the French government honored him as Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2006 he was decorated with the Hungarian Kossuth Prize, in 2011 with the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award and the Dutch Ovatie Prize, and in 2013 he was named an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Iván Fischer is honorary citizen of Budapest.

André Schüen

baritone

Since her German debut as Elsa in Lohengrin at the Staatsoper Berlin and her Bayreuth debut as Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (D: Wolfgang Wagner / D: Daniel Barenboim) in 1997, Emily Magee has sung at all the leading opera houses and festivals, including La Scala in Milan, the Met in New York, the Royal Opera House in London, the Opéra National de Paris, the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals, the State Operas in Vienna, Munich, Hamburg and Berlin, the Zurich Opera House, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Semperoper Dresden, the Liceu in Barcelona and the Korean National Opera. Emily Magee has worked with leading conductors such as Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti, Simon Rattle, Antonio Pappano, Daniele Gatti, Donald Runnicles, Zubin Mehta, Philippe Jordan, Christian Thielemann, Kent Nagano, Marek Janowski, Simone Young and Franz Welser-Möst.

Concert highlights include Salome with the Hessischer Rundfunk in Frankfurt, Rachmaninov’s The Bells at the BBC London with Semyon Bychkov, Gurre-Lieder with Mark Elder and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, concerts of Rienzi/Irene in Budapest (Palace of Arts), Beethoven’s 9th and Mahler’s 8th Symphony at the Vienna Konzerthaus and again Beethoven’s 9th as well as a concert performance of Euryanthe with Marek Janowski at the Dresden Philharmonic, Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony in Hamburg, concert performances of Die Walküre (Act 1) with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under Simone Young and Verdi’s Requiem at the Vienna Musikverein.

Anna-Lena Elbert

soprano

The Munich-based soprano completed her vocal studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich with a Master’s degree in Lied. Anna-Lena Elbert maintains a busy concert schedule with a wide-ranging repertoire from Renaissance to modern, covering all the great oratorios by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Mendelssohn, among others. She has performed with orchestras such as the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hofkapelle Stuttgart, the Berlin Baroque Soloists, Porto Symphony Orchestra, Konzerthausorchester Berlin and the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

 Already during her studies Anna-Lena Elbert had a special preference for early and new music and received important impulses from Christine Schornsheim, Kristin von der Goltz, Friederike Heumann, Konstantia Gourzi and Jan Müller-Wieland. She was a MozartLabor scholarship holder at the Mozartfest Würzburg and performed at the Schleswig Holstein Festival, the Rheingau Festival, the Beethovenfest Bonn and musica viva in Munich.

 Anna-Lena Elbert is a regular guest at the Opernfestspiele Heidenheim and made her debut at the Bavarian State Opera in 2020 in the leading role of a children’s opera (debut performance).  In May 2022 she debuted at the Salzburger Festspiele with and in August 2023 at the BBC Proms under the direction of Ivan Fischer.

 Anna-Lena Elbert has a special passion for chamber music and Lied. Individual programming and a lively and intensive musical exchange with her duo partners is her focus. In 2019, together with Kota Sakaguchi, she was a prizewinner of the Richard Strauss Lied Competition, as well as the international Helmut Deutsch Lied Competition, and regularly gives recitals, for instance at the Schubertíada in Spain or the Beethovenhaus Bonn. She also made her debut at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg in December 2023.

Andrew Staples

tenor

Andrew Staples stands as a versatile artist of our era. He combines a busy schedule as an opera and concert singer with a career as a film and stage director and photographer.

As a distinguished tenor, he has collaborated with Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Harding, Emmanuelle Haïm, Elim Chan, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, with orchestras such as Berlin Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony Orchestra.

He made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden with Fidelio (Jacquino), returned for roles in Capriccio, Die Zauberflöte, Katya Kabanova, and Salome. Last year he made his debut with Britten’s Peter Grimes (Peter) at the Teatro La Fenice and his Berliner Staatsoper debut with the title role in Mozart’s Idomeneo.

This season, Andrew will work with Orchestre de Paris, Gürzenich Orchester, San Francisco Symphony, Munich Philharmonic. He will have a tour with Les Siècles conducted by Francois-Xavier Roth performing Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. He will perform Mozart’s Idomeneo with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle.

His work as a film and stage director and photographer includes directing music films and documentaries. He directed Stravinsky’s Firebird for Air France in collaboration with Arte, Daniel Harding and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Upcoming plans include Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time with Alice Sara Ott for DG Stage+.

 

Gurgen Baveyan

baritone

Stuart Patterson

tenor

Stuart Patterson was born in Perthshire and studied in Glasgow, London, Florence and Paris. He sang with the Glyndebourne Chorus before settling in France in 1985 where he joined the Groupe Vocal de France under John Alldis, performing works by Berio, Dusapin, Kagel, Ligeti, Webern and Xenakis, among others.

His operatic appearances have included Monteverdi’s Ulisse, Don Ottavio and Ferrando (Pisa), Pedrillo and Pâris in La Belle Hélène (Opéra-Comique), Sellem (The Rake’s Progress) and Vater Mignon ( Die Teufel von Loudun) in Torino, Snout and Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Lyons, Bern), Goro (Berlin State Opera), Schmidt in Werther and Remendado (Royal Opera), L’Incredibile in Andrea Chénier and Flute (Geneva), Tapioca in L’Étoile (Bergen), Herod (Taipei), Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia (Ensemble Proteus), Mime in Siegfried (Lübeck) and Teapot/Arithmetic/Tree/Frog in L’Enfant et les sortilèges, Lacouf/Journalist in Les Mamelles de Tirésias, Monostatos and First Priest in Die Zauberflöte, Dr Caius, Spärlich in Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor and Frick/Prosper in La Vie parisienne (Lausanne), Arnalta / Nutrice in L’incoronazione di Poppea with the Budapest Festival Orchestra in Geneva, Budapest and Vicenza.

Recent and upcoming highlights include Grand Mother in Little Red Riding Hood (Tours), Governor in Candide (Lausanne), Monostatos in Die Zauberflöte (Reims), Scaramuccio in Ariadne auf Naxos with the Budapest Festival Orchestra in Spoleto, Budapest and Vicenza…

Patterson regularly performs in concert, in repertory including Saint Nicolas, L’Enfance du Christ, St John Passion.

He is Professor of Singing at the Haute École de Musique, Geneva, and director of the Festival Lyrique de Montperreux, France, which he founded in 2009.

Daniel Noyola

basso

Bass Daniel Noyola from San Luis Potosí, Mexico is an ensemble member at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Germany. There he has appeared as Pistola in Verdi’s Falstaff; as Zuñiga in Bizet’s Carmen and Truffaldino in Ariadne auf Naxos, among others.

He recently finished his residency at the outstanding Houston Grand Opera Studio where he made his house debut as Colline in La Bohème and Masetto in Kasper Holten’s iconic production of Don Giovanni, as well as starring in the world premiere of El Milagro del Recuerdo by J. Martinez.

In 2018 he graduated from the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia. There he appeared as the title role in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Ferrando in Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, and Raimondo in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.

Previous engagements have included Mustafá in Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri with Tri-Cities Opera in New York; Dulcamara in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (which he performed with Sociedad Artística Sinaloense in Mexico); Figaro in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, with Oberlin in Italy; Uberto in La Serva Padrona and Luka in The Bear by William Walton with the Merola Opera Program at the San Francisco Opera; and the roles of Scapin and Der Lautsprecher in a double bill called “The World Turned Upside Down” that included Gluck’s L’île de Merlin and Ullman’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis at Wolf Trap Opera.

In 2019 he represented Mexico in Placido Domingo’s Operalia competition. He has been awarded first place in the Career Bridges competition in N.Y.C. and Artist Series Concert of Sarasota Competition for Voice, second place in the New England Regional Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2018, second place in the Mario Lanza competition in Philadelphia, and third place in the AIMS Meistersinger competition in Graz, Austria, among others.

In 2014 he completed his studies at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in Mexico City.

Juan de Dios Mateos

tenor

Born in Almería, he studied singing with Coral Morales and Carlos Aransay.

He joined the Opera Studio of Paris National Opera House from 2016 to 2018. Since then, he has sung in theaters such as Gran Teatre del Liceu, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Arts Centre, Teatro Municipal de Santiago de Chile, Petruzelli Theater, Massimo Bellini Theater in Catania, Oslo Opera House, Theater Hagen, Campoamor Theater or Innsbruck Theater. Spezialized in Rossini, he also stands out in bel canto and Mozart repertoire in operas such as Il Barbiere di Siviglia, L’Elisir d’amore, La Cenerentola, Don Giovanni, Il Viaggio a Reims, il Turco in Italia, La Cenerentola, L’Italiana in Algeri, La Resurrezione or in Spanish repertoire with El caballero de Olmedo, La Dolores, La Araucana or Luisa Fernanda working with conductors as Ottavio Dantone, Giacomo Sagripanti, Patrick Lange, Guillaume Tourniaire, Matteo Beltrami, José Miguel Pérez-Sierra, Nicholas Carter, Xu Zhong, Daniel Smith, Iván López-Reynoso, Michael Thomas, Toufic Maatouk, Dane Lam, Juan José Navarro or Iñaki Encina.

He was awarded the Plácido Domingo prize for the best Spanish singer and the Ferrer-Salat Foundation at the 56th International Tenor Viñas Competition and with second prize at the International Hariclea Darclée Competition in Romania in 2017, as well as Revelation Artist at the El Publico of Canal Sur in 2020. In 2021 he received the several awards during the SOI International Competition. In 2023 he was awarded with the prize of the public in Lousada International Competition.

Samantha Gaul

soprano

Samantha Gaul is now a member of the Oper Leipzig after 5 years as ensemble member at Theater Freiburg, where she has sung Musetta(La Bohème), Olympia (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Nannetta (Falstaff), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) and the lead role in the German premiere of Mark Anthony Turnage’s Coraline, as well as the titlerole in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen.

The young soprano has also been engaged at Theater Basel, Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele, Weilburger Schlosskonzerte, and as Najade (Ariane auf Naxos) at Oper Frankfurt, Musetta at Konzert Theater Bern, Najade with Iván Fischer in Budapest and Vicenza, Ka (Mr Emmet takes a Walk) in Freiburg, and in Mahler’s 4th Symphonyin Luxembourg.

At Staatstheater Augsburg she performed Sophie Scholl (Zimmermann’s Weiße Rose), the title role in Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus, Serpetta (La finta giardiniera) and Adina (L’elisir d’amore).

Recently, she sang Najade in Montpellier and jumped in as Nannettain the new production of Falstaff at Komische Oper Berlin and gave a recital in the Schubertiade at Hohenems.

Her projects for the 2022/23 season: in Leipzig, she will sing Gretel(Hänsel und Gretel), Ännchen (Der Freischütz), Zerlina (Don Giovanni,) First Niece (Peter Grimes), Frasquita (Carmen). At Theater Regensburg, Samantha will be heard as Pamina (Die Zauberflöte).

She studied and received her prizes at the Frankfurt Conservatory in the class of Hedwig Fassbender and in Munich with Christiane Iven.

She has taken part in masterclasses with Rudolf Piernay and Helmut Deutsch.

Among other awards, she received first prizes in the Jugend musiziert competition and special prizes from the Walter und Charlotte Hamel Foundation. She also won the 3rd prize in the national singing competition and is a scholarship holder of the Richard Wagner Verband as well as of the Da Ponte and ArtemusicaFoundation.

The magazine Opernwelt nominated her “Young Hope” in 2018.

Olivia Vermeulen

mezzo-soprano

Dutch mezzo-soprano Olivia Vermeulen has established herself in recent years as a versatile soloist of international standing.

Engagements of the past seasons comprise her role debut as Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni as well as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, both on tour with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under René Jacobs. She appeared as a soloist in the frame of Salzburg’s Mozart Week along with Jörg Widmann, and sang Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor under Masaaki Suzuki at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées as well as at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. With the same work, she also gave her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic under Daniel Harding.

She is equally in demand as a performer of contemporary music: in this capacity, she made her debut at the Ruhrtriennale with the world premiere of Philippe Manoury’s Kein Licht and has been invited by the Bregenz Festival to perform the role of Saiko in the world premiere of Thomas Larcher’s Das Jagdgewehr.

Olivia Vermeulen has appeared at festivals such as the Munich Opera Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the RheinVokal Festival, the Musikfest Stuttgart and the Handel Festival in Halle, working with conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Iván Fischer, Markus Stenz, Marek Janowski, Andrea Marcon, Reinhard Goebel, Michael Schønwandt, Alessandro de Marchi, Konrad Junghänel, Tomáš Netopil.

Mirella Hagen

soprano

German soprano Mirella Hagen began her career as a young artist at the State Opera Stuttgart, where she sang roles like Aennchen (Freischütz) and Flower Maiden (Parsifal) under the baton of Manfred Honeck. After a year being part of the theater in Regensburg, where she sang Gretel (Hansel & Gretel) and Valencienne (The Merry Widow) she joined Opera Vlaanderen singing Papagena (The Magic Flute), Anna (Nabucco) and, again, Flower Maiden (Parsifal) in a widely acclaimed production staged by Tatjana Gürbaca. For three seasons she was a member of the State Opera Braunschweig singing a broad repertoire, including Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Pamina (The Magic Flute), Eliza Doolittle (My Fair Lady), Fiorella (Les Brigands), or Gilda (Rigoletto).

In recent seasons she has taken on an international career with appearances at the Bayreuth Festival (Woglinde and Wood Bird in the centenary production of the “Ring of the Nibelungs“ to celebrate Wagner’s 200th birthday), the Bavarian State Opera Munich, the Semperoper Dresden, Opera Graz, Grand Théâtre Génève, the Opéra du Rhin Strasbourg, or the Theater an der Wien, where she was invited as a frequent guest appearing in productions of Salieri’s Falstaff, the Ring of the Nibelungs, Alcina, Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Rusalka.

 

Having a strong affinity to early classical and baroque music, Ms Hagen collaborated with acclaimed artists as Helmuth Rilling, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and the Freiburger Barockorchester with René Jacobs, Hans-Christoph Rademann, B’Rock, as well as the Concentus Musicus under the baton of Stefan Gottfried. She has succesfully toured through the U.S., Asia, Russia and numerous European countries and has sung on important festivals like the Musikfest Stuttgart, the Beethovenfest Bonn, or the Munich Opera Festival.

Besides that, she has also collaborated with conductors like Sir Simon Rattle, Manfred Honeck, Elihau Inbal, Antonello Manacorda, David Afkham, Kirill Petrenko, Marek Janowski, Georg Fritzsch, Constantin Trinks and Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli.

During her career she has established a strong connection to the Lied, performing on famous concert stages like the Hugo Wolf Society, the Villa Wahnfried or the Hugo Wolf Festival Ljubljana. Her CD “A Maiden’s Heart“ (“Mädchenherzen“) with songs by Hugo Wolf, Ludwig Thuille & Richard Strauss was well-recieved in the press.