Ballet by John Neumeier after Homer | The Odyssey
Conductor
Markus Lehtinen
Conductor
Markus Lehtinen absolvierte ein Klavier- und Dirigentenstudium an der Sibelius-Akademie in Helsinki. Zudem studierte er Komposition bei Aulis Sallinen und Einojuhani Rautavaara. 1988 wurde er an die Königliche Oper in Kopenhagen verpflichtet, der er bis 1993 angehörte. Er war Chefdirigent des Jyväskylä Sinfonieorchesters sowie Gastdirigent des Malmö Sinfonieorchesters. 1993 debütierte er an der Hamburgischen Staatsoper, weitere Engagements in Deutschland waren unter anderem an der Deutschen Oper Berlin und an der Bayerischen Staatsoper. Seit 2004 hat Markus Lehtinen eine Professur an der Sibelius-Akademie.
Baritone
Georgios Iatrou
Baritone
Georgios Iatrou was born in Thessaloniki/Greece. He's one of the most promising and versatile greek singers. His repertoire varies from baroque to modern music and from opera to Lied, chanson and oratorio. He has performed in many theaters a.o. Hamburg Staatsoper, Cologne Opera, Aalto Theater Essen, Grand Theater Avignon, Greek National Opera, Toronto Opera, Theater Bonn, Olympia Music Theater and Theater Dortmund and halls a.o. Muziekgebow Amsterdam, National Concert Hall Ireland, Philharmonie Essen, Tonhalle in Düsseldorf, Megaron of Thessaloniki. He has worked with important directors a.o. Graham Vick, Laurent Pelly, Lotte De Beer, Dietrich W. Hilsdorf, Philip Stölzl, Frank Hilbrich and important conductors a.o. Giacomo Sagripanti, Fabrizio Maria Carminati, Manlio Benzi, Matteo Beltrami, Tomáš Netopil, Sébastien Rouland. He participated in important opera, theater and performance festivals a.o. Romaeuropa, Holland Festival, Festival de Marseilles, Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Bachfest Leipzig.
At the age of five he received piano and cello lessons. At the age of 21 he got his first singing lessons at the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki. In 2010 he was accepted in the Music University of Cologne (Prof. Mario Hoff). He completed his masters at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf (Prof. Konrad Jarnot). His current coaches are Margreet Honig, Jeremy Silver and Caroline Merz. Georgios also studied Molecular Biology at the Demokritus University of Greece.
As a member of the soloist ensemble at the Aalto Theater of Essen, Georgios performed the parts of a.o. Figaro (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Valentin (Faust), Schaunard (La Bohème), Silvano (Un ballo in maschera), Kostandis (The Greek Passion), Sprecher (Die Zauberflöte), Marullo (Rigoletto) and Farfarello/Herold (L'Amour des trois oranges).
He guested as Marcello (La Bohème) and Dr. Falke at the Greek National Opera, Figaro (Il barbiere di Siviglia) at the National Concert Hall in Dublin and the Nouvelle Opera Fribourg in Switzerland, Eugene Onegin at Betty Oliphant Theater in Toronto Canada, Prometheus by C.Orff at the young artists festival of Bayreuth, Schaunard (La Bohème) at the Theater of Bonn, Guglielmo (Cosi fan tutte) at the Teatro Poliziano in Italy, Daniel (Anna Nicole) at the Theater of Dortmund,, Lehrbube (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) at the Opera of Cologne, Albert Herring, Deputato (Don Carlos) and Tancredi (Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda) at the Theater of Aachen, Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus) at the Musikhochschule Köln, Frank Maurrant (Street Scene) at the Robert Schumann Hochschule etc.
He has done numerous world premiers of contemporary works a.o. Prometheus und Jupiter in "Prometheus Unbound" by F. Schwenk , Pavlos in "The Death of Anthony" by H. Goyos , Daniel in "Anna Nicole" von Mark-Anthony Turnage, Strella von M. Paraskakis, Jesus in "Christi Kreuz vor Augen" von E. Eckert, He in "The Fall of the House of Commons" by O. Papaioannou.
In the summer of 2011 he sang at the Young artists festival of Bayreuth. The WDR-radio produced with him and Amina Taikenova Lieder by Hanns Eisler. In 2014 he won the 1st prize at the "Schmolz und Bickenbach" competition. He also won one of the additional prizes in the "Nei Stemmen" international singing competition in Luxemburg and in 2016 he won the song prize at the "Antonio Bertolini” international contest in Milano. In 2017 he won the best interpretation prize at the Riccardo Zandonai competition in Italy and in 2019 the 3rd Prize. He did his first CD participation at the "Jubiläums-CD für Staatskanzlei" with songs by R.Schumann. He has given concerts in many halls in Germany, Holland, Luxemburg, Israel and Greece.
He took part in masterclasses with Jorma Hynninen, Margreet Honig, Cheryl Studer, Daphne Evangelatos, Edda Moser, Jeannet Pilou, Enza Ferrari, Laurent Pillot. He is a scholar of the Oscar und Vera Ritter-Stiftung , DAAD and Deutschlandstipendium.
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Orchestra
Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg
Orchestra
The Philharmonic State Orchestra is Hamburg’s largest and oldest orchestra, looking back on many years of musical history. When the “Philharmonic Orchestra” and the “Orchestra of the Hamburg Municipal Theatre” merged in 1934, two tradition-steeped orchestras combined. Philharmonic concerts have been performed in Hamburg since 1828, artists such as Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms being regular guests of the Philharmonic Society. The history of the opera company goes back even further: Hamburg has been home to musical theatre since 1678, even if a regular opera or theatre orchestra was only formed later. To this day, the Philharmonic State Orchestra has embodied the sound of the Hansa City, a concert and opera orchestra in one.
During its long history, the orchestra encountered great artist personalities. Apart from composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, such as Telemann, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Mahler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, since the 20th century chief conductors such as Karl Muck, Joseph Keilberth, Eugen Jochum, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Aldo Ceccato, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gerd Albrecht, Ingo Metzmacher and Simone Young have shaped the orchestra’s sound. Renowned conductors of the pre-war era such as Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt gave brilliant performances, as did outstanding conductors of our times: suffice it to mention Christian Thielemann, Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Petrenko, Adam Fischer and Sir Roger Norrington.
Starting with the 2015/2016 season, Kent Nagano has taken on the position of Hamburg’s General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera and since June 2023 also its honorary conductor. In his first season Kent Nagano initiated a new project, the Philharmonic Academy, focusing on experimentation and chamber music. In 2016, Nagano and the Philharmonic toured South America, followed by concert tours to Spain and Japan in 2019, and in the spring of 2023, the Philharmonic State Orchestra made its debut at New York's Carnegie Hall under his direction, which was acclaimed by audiences and the press. Since 2017 Kent Nagano and the Philharmonic State Orchestra have continued the traditional Philharmonic Concerts at the new Elbphilharmonie, for which they commissioned Jörg Widmann to compose the oratorio ARCHE, which was given its world premiere during the hall’s opening festivities. The concert recording has been released by ECM, for which Widmann received the OPUS KLASSIK as Composer of the Year 2019, and ARCHE was performed again in 2023 to great acclaim.
The Philharmonic State Orchestra offers approximately 35 concerts per season and performs more than 240 performances per year at the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier, making it Hamburg’s busiest orchestra. The stylistic bandwidth covered by the 140 musicians, ranging from historically informed performance practice to contemporary works and including concert, opera and ballet repertoire, is unique throughout Germany. Chamber Music has a long tradition at the Philharmonic State Orchestra: what began in 1929 with a concert series for chamber orchestra has been continued since 1968 by a series of chamber music only.
In 2008 Simone Young and the Philharmonic State Orchestra won the Brahms Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society. The orchestra has recorded the complete Ring by Wagner as well as the complete symphonies of Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner – the latter in the rarely-performed original versions – as well as works by Mahler, Hindemith and Berg, and has released DVDs of opera and ballet productions by Hosokawa, Offenbach, Reimann, Auerbach, J.S. Bach, Puccini, Poulenc and Weber.
The members of the Philharmonic State Orchestra feel equally beholden to Hamburg’s musical tradition and responsible for the city’s artistic future. Since 1978 the musicians have been participating in education programmes in Hamburg’s schools. Today, the orchestra maintains a broad education programme, including school and kindergarten visits, patronage for music projects, introductory events for children and family concerts. The orchestra’s own academy prepares young musicians for their professional careers. The Philharmonic’s musicians thereby make an equally enjoyable and valuable contribution to tomorrow’s music education in the music metropolis of Hamburg.
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photo: Foto: Felix Broede
