Philippe Jordan
Coming from an artistic Swiss family, Philippe Jordan’s career has taken him to all the world’s major opera houses, festivals and orchestras, and he is regarded as one of the most established and important conductors of our time.
He has been Music Director of the Wiener Staatsoper since September 2020 and opened his first season with premieres of Madama Butterfly, Parsifal and Macbeth beside revivals of Der Rosenkavalier and le Nozze di Figaro. In this season he will conduct the premieres of Don Giovanni, Wozzek and Tristan and revivals of Parsifal, Rosenkavalier and Capriccio.
Philippe Jordan’s career on the podium began as Kapellmeister at Germany’s Stadttheater Ulm and at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. From 2001-2004 he was principal conductor of Graz Opera and the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra. During this period he also debuted at several of the world’s leading opera houses and festivals, for example the Metropolitan Opera New York, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Teatro alla Scala, Bavarian State Opera, the Wiener Staatsoper and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, and the festivals of Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne and Salzburg. From 2006-2010 he returned to the Berlin State Opera as principal guest conductor. In the summer of 2012 he debuted at the Bayreuth Festival with »Parsifal«, which he followed up in 2017 with Bayreuth’s new production of »Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg«, which he also conducted in subsequent years.
Philippe Jordan was musical director of the Opéra national de Paris between 2009 and 2021, and has conducted numerous premieres and revivals, including »Moses und Aron«, »La damnation de Faust«, »Der Rosenkavalier«, »Samson et Dalila«, »Lohengrin«, »Don Carlos« (French original version), »Les Troyens«, »Don Giovanni«, the new production of Borodin’s »Prince Igor« and Wagner's “Ring” cycle in a concert version.
From 2014-2020 Philippe Jordan has also been principal conductor of the Wiener Symphoniker. Together with the orchestra he has developed a.o. complete cycles of Schubert’s symphonies and Beethoven’s symphonies and piano concerti, a cycle of J. S. Bach’s major masses and oratorios and a contrast-filled dialogue with Bruckner´s last three symphonie and modern classics by Kurtág, Ligeti and Scelsi.
In the symphonic field Philippe Jordan has conducted the world’s most famous orchestras, including the Berliner and Wiener Philharmoniker, Münchner Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and the symphony orchestras of Seattle, St Louis, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Washington, Minnesota, Montreal, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.
His upcoming orchestra engagements include the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Webern Symphonie Orchester.