Cast

Rodolphe Bruneau-Boulmier

Biography will be published shortly.

Performances

• Die Illusionen des William Mallory

General Music Director of Hamburg

Kent Nagano

Kent Nagano is considered one of today’s outstanding conductors for both operatic and orchestral repertoire. Since September 2015, he has been General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg. In addition, he is committed as Artistic Director of the Ring project “The Wagner Cycles” of Dresdner Musikfestspiele with Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln, and as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival. He has been Honorary Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin since 2006, Concerto Köln since 2019, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 2021 and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester since 2023.

The 2024/25 season is Kent Nagano's last season as General Music Director in Hamburg and brings four new productions to the Staatsoper under Nagano's musical direction: Carl Orff's Trionfi, Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, Unsuk Chin's The Dark Side of the Moon, and Rodolphe Bruneau-Boulmier's The Illusions of William Mallory. Furthermore, he conducts symphony concerts with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester in the Elbphilharmonie as he does every season, including the New Year's performance and the world premiere of Alex Nante's symphony Anahata, a work commissioned by the Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Highlights of recent seasons in Hamburg have included opera productions such as Boris Godunov, Salome, performances of Sciarrino's Venere e Adone and Britten's Peter Grimes, Les Troyens, Lulu, Lessons in Love and Violence and the world premiere of Stilles Meer as well as Les Contes d'Hoffmann in the new production by Daniele Finzi Pasca (released on DVD by EuroArts, February 2022), the “Philharmonic Academy” in St. Michaelis, open-air concerts at the Rathausmarkt and the world premiere of Pascal Dusapin's work Waves for organ and orchestra at the Elbphilharmonie. Orchestral tours with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg have taken Kent Nagano to Japan, Spain and South America.

In the 2024/25 season, Kent Nagano conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Passau, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal in Montréal and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin, among others. He also conducts Dusapin's Il Vaggio, Dante in a production by Claus Guth at the Paris Opera and the revival of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre in a production by Krzysztof Warlikowski at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.

As a much sought-after guest conductor, Kent Nagano regularly works with leading international orchestras worldwide, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique Radio France, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre de l'Opéra national in Paris, the Chicago and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest and the Wiener Symphoniker. A special project was the Bernstein opera A quiet place at the Paris Opera. Other opera productions include the world premiere of Dusapin's Il viaggio, dante at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Hindemith's Cardillac, Henze's Die Bassariden and the world premiere of Saariaho's L'amour de loin at the Salzburg Festival. Other world premieres conducted by Nagano include Bernstein's A White House Cantata and the operas Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin, Three Sisters by Peter Eötvös and The Death of Klinghoffer and El Niño by John Adams.

Under the artistic direction of Kent Nagano and the Intendant of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele Jan Vogler, Wagner's Ring Tetralogy will be performed in the artistic context of the period in which it was composed, based on the latest findings of research into Wagner and performance practice, and integrated into an extensive supporting program as part of the multi-year project The Wagner Cycles of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele from 2023 to 2026. The first performance in 2023 was Das Rheingold at the Dresden Music Festival and the tour to Cologne, Ravello and Lucerne under the musical direction of Kent Nagano. Die Walküre followed in 2024 as the second work in the epochal narrative in Prague, Amsterdam, Cologne, Dresden, Hamburg and Lucerne. In 2025, the project devotes itself to Richard Wagner's Siegfried and gives historically informed concert performances in international concert halls and opera houses.

Highlights of Kent Nagano's collaboration with the OSM as Music Director from 2006 to 2020 included the inauguration of the orchestra’s new concert hall La Maison Symphonique in September 2011, performances of the complete cycles of Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, concert versions of Wagner's Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde and Das Rheingold, Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au Bücher, and Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise. Tours have taken Nagano and the orchestra to Canada including the Northern Territories, Japan, South Korea, Europe (latest 2019), Latin America and the USA. In July 2018, Kent Nagano conducted Krzysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion with the OSM at the Salzburg Festival opening concert.
His recordings with the OSM on Sony Classical/Analekta include Mahler’s Orchestral Songs with Christian Gerhaher in 2013 and a complete recording of all of Beethoven’s symphonies in 2015. Decca released a recording of the North American premiere of L'Aiglon, a rarely performed opera by Honegger and Ibert in 2016, conducted by Nagano in 2015. Further releases by Decca are Danse Macabre with works by Dukas, Saint-Saens, Ives and others in 2016 as well as a recording of Bernstein's A quiet place in 2018 on the occasion of the composer's 100th birthday. John Adams' Common tones in simple time & harmony (Decca) was released in 2019, the Lukas Passion by Penderecki (BIS) and works by Ginastera, Bernstein and Moussa (Analekta) in 2020.

At the Bayerische Staatsoper, where he was General Music Director from 2006 to 2013, Kent Nagano commissioned new operas such as Babylon by Jörg Widmann, Das Gehege by Wolfgang Rihm and Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin. New productions included Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Frau ohne Schatten, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites, Messiaen’s Saint François d'Assise, Berg’s Wozzeck, George Benjamin's Written on skin and Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Tours took Nagano and the Bavarian State Orchestra through Europe and Japan. In addition to Bruckner's Symphonies Nos. 4 and 7 (Sony), Kent Nagano has released several opera performances with the Bavarian State Orchestra on DVD: Unsuk Chin's opera Alice in Wonderland (2008) and Mussorgsky's Chowanschtschina (2009) with unitel classica/medici arts, Dialogue des Carmélites with Bel Air Classiques (2011) and Lohengrin (2010) with Decca.

Another very important period in Nagano’s career was his time as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2000-2006. He performed Schönberg’s Moses und Aron with the orchestra (in collaboration with Los Angeles Opera) and took them to the Salzburg Festival to perform both Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules and Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten, as well as to the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden with Parsifal and Lohengrin in productions by Nikolaus Lehnhoff. Recordings with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin for Harmonia Mundi include repertoire as diverse as Bernstein’s Mass, Bruckner’s Symphonies Nos. 3 & 6, Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge, Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, Schönberg’s Die Jakobsleiter and Friede auf Erden, as well as Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 and Schönberg’s Variationen für Orchester Op. 31. In June 2006, at the end of his tenure with the orchestra, Kent Nagano was given the title Honorary Conductor by members of the orchestra – only the second recipient of this honour in their 60-year history. To this day he maintains a close friendship with the orchestra.

In October 2019, Kent Nagano and Mari Kodama expanded their joint recordings of Beethoven's works for piano and orchestra with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 0 E-flat Major WoO 4, a nearly unknown work from the composer’s youth, and his Rondo for Piano and Orchestra WoO 6 with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. The complete edition of Beethoven’s piano concerti was released on the Berlin Classics label.

Nagano was awarded Grammys for his recordings of Busoni’s Doktor Faust with Opéra National de Lyon, Prokofjew’s Peter and the Wolf with the Russian National Orchestra and Saariaho’s L’amour de Loin with the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin. He has worked with labels such as BIS, Decca, Sony Classical, FARAO Classics and Analekta for many years, and has also recorded CDs with Berlin Classics, Erato, Teldec, Pentatone, Deutsche Grammophon and Harmonia Mundi.

To celebrate Kent Nagano's 70th birthday in 2021, a 3-CD box set of works by Olivier Messiaen was released in October on the BR Klassik label. The release includes live recordings of the works Poèmes pour Mi, Chronochromie and La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ from his concerts with the Symphonieorchester und Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, demonstrating Nagano's close familiarity with Messiaen's musical language in a special way.

In September 2021, Kent Nagano published his second book with Berlin Verlag. In "10 Lessons of my Life", he recalls ten deeply personal encounters from which he learned important lessons, not only for his career but for his life more broadly. Among those experiences are encounters with the Icelandic pop artist Björk, Frank Zappa, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez and the Nobel Prize winner in physics Donald Glaser.
In 2015 Kent Nagano published "Erwarten Sie Wunder!" also in Berlin Verlag, a passionate appeal for the relevance of classical music in today's world. In 2019 the book was released in English by the Canadian McGill-Queen's University Press under the title ″Classical Music - Expect the Unexpected" and in 2015 under "Sonnez, merveilles!" in French by Éditions du Boréal.

Born in California, Nagano maintains close connections with his home state and was Music Director of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra from 1978-2009. His first major successes came with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1984, when Messiaen appointed him assistant to conductor Seiji Ozawa for the premiere of his opera Saint François d'Assise. Nagano’s success in America led to European appointments: Music Director of Opéra National de Lyon (1988-1998) and Music Director of the Hallé Orchestra (1991-2000). Kent Nagano became the first Music Director of Los Angeles Opera in 2003 having already held the position of Principal Conductor for two years.

Kent Nagano was awarded an honorary doctorate from McGill University in Montréal in 2005, an honorary doctorate from the Université de Montréal in 2006, and an honorary doctorate from San Francisco State University in 2018. Since 2017, Kent Nagano has been a "Compagnon" of the "Ordre des arts et des lettres" of Québec and in the fall of 2023, Kent Nagano was also awarded the title of "Chevalier" in the "Ordre des art et des lettres" of France. In February 2024, Kent Nagano was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Federal President and in June 2024 he was awarded the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honor. Kent Nagano is the recipient of the 2024 Brahms Prize of the Brahms Society of Schleswig-Holstein.

Find further information about Kent Nagano here.

Performances

• Rathausmarkt Open Air
• 1st Academy Concert - Program I
• 1st Academy Concert - Program II
• 1st Academy Concert - Program III
• Trionfi
• 1st Philharmonic Concert
• Boris Godunov
• Special chamber concert
• Jubiläumsgala: 30 Jahre Internationales Opernstudio
• 3rd Philharmonic Concert
• Elektra
• New Year's Eve concert
• Der fliegende Holländer
• Orchesterprobenbesuch
• 5th Philharmonic Concert
• Ariadne auf Naxos
• 6th Philharmonic Concert
• Les Contes d'Hoffmann
• Opening concert of the Hamburg International Music Festival
• Die dunkle Seite des Mondes
• Die Illusionen des William Mallory
• Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde)
• 10th Philharmonic Concert

photo: Dominik Odenkirchen

Inge Kloepfer

Inge Kloepfer is an award-winning journalist, non-fiction writer and screenwriter. She began her career as a journalist at the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", for which she still writes today. Her breakthrough as a highly acclaimed non-fiction author came with the bestseller "Friede Springer - die Biografie", followed by numerous other publications. Together with Kent Nagano, she wrote the books "Erwarten Sie Wunder! Expect the Unexpected" and "10 Lessons of my Life - Was wirklich zählt". Together with Omer Meir Wellber, she wrote "Die Angst, das Risiko und die Liebe - Momente mit Mozart", a book that deals with the collaboration between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, using the three operas "Don Giovanni", "Die Hochzeit des Figaro" and "Cosí van tutte" as examples. Most recently, her biography of the highly gifted pianist, composer and mathematician Kit Armstrong "Metamorphosen eines Wunderkinds" was published. Her debut as a novelist followed in 2023 with "The Doubts of Homer Spiegelman". She has now published her first libretto with "Die Illusionen des William Mallory".

Performances

• Die Illusionen des William Mallory

photo: Daniel Biskup

Director

Georges Delnon

Georges Delnon was born in 1958 in Zurich. He studied history and art history at the Universities of Bern and Friborg as well as composition and music theory at the Bern Conservatory. Positions as assistant director, including works with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Götz Friedrich and Giorgio Strehler, completed his training.

This was followed by the first opera and theater productions such as "Carmen" and "Fledermaus" at the Frankfurt Opera, "Dido" in Toulouse, "Rape of Lucretia" in Dusseldorf and Basel, "Fräulein Julie" in Essen, "La Griselda" (Vivaldi) in Geneva, "Junge Lord" (Henze), "Maria Stuart" and "Ezio" for the Händel Festival in Karlsruhe, "Schwarze Spinne" (Sutermeister), "Das Lachen der Schafe " (Demierre) and "König für einen Tag" (Grünauer) for the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. In 1996, he took over his first artistic directon at the Theater of the City of Koblenz and became co-founder of the Koblenz fortress games. From 1999-2006, he became Artistic Director of the Staatstheater Mainz, where numerous works were created. Among other things, the reopening of the Great House was broadcasted live on 3Sat in 2001 with the staging of the opera "Saul" by G. F. Händel.

Other works as director during this period include "Il figlio delle selve" by Ignaz Holzbauer for the Schwetzinger Festspiele and the Féstival Radio France Montpellier. In addition, Georges Delnon appeared as an actor in the movie “HEIMAT 3” by Edgar Reitz.

In 2004, he directed the world premiere of Mark André, "22.13", for the Munich Biennale, the Festival d'Automne à Paris and the Opéra National de Paris. In 2005 and 2006, he staged the world premiere "Zaubern" by Frederik Zeller and the baroque opera "Proserpina" by Joseph Martin Kraus for the Schwetzinger Festspiele.

From 2006 to 2015, Georges Delnon has been director of the Theatre Basel, Switzerland's largest three-party house. Under his leadership, the theatre became Opera House of the Year in the Opernwelt Critics Survey twice, in 2009 and 2010. In 2010, he directed Giuseppe Verdi's TV production "Aida am Rhein", which was broadcasted live on Swiss television and on 3Sat.

In 2012, he directed the world premiere of Alfred Zimmerlin's music theatre "Das Licht" for the Lucerne Festival and in 2013 "Anschlag", also for the Lucerne Festival and märz musik Berlin.

From 2009 to 2016, Georges Delnon was Artistic Director of the Music Theatre of the Schwetzinger SWR Festival. The two world premieres "Proserpina" in 2009 and "Koma" in 2016 were honored in the critics' poll of the opera world as "premiere of the year".

Since 2015, he is the Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra. Under his leadership, Alban Berg's "Lulu" is voted "Performance of the Year" in the critics' survey of the opera world in 2017, and director Christoph Marthaler receives the Faust Prize for this production. In the summer of 2018, Georges Delnon's Hamburg staging of the Zauberflöte for young people "Erzittre, feiger Bösewicht", was screened in Shanghai. In 2019 he staged the chamber opera "THERÈSE", which was premiered at the Salzburg Easter Festival and celebrated its German premiere in the Recital Hall of the Elbphilharmonie at the Hamburg International Music Festival.

Performances

• Die Kreide im Mund des Wolfs
• Die Illusionen des William Mallory

photo: Peter Schnetz

Stage and costume designer

Marie-Thérèse Jossen

Birthplace:
Luzern, Switzerland

Studies:
Dressmaking

Important productions:
“THERÈSE” (Osterfestspiele Salzburg UA / Elbphilharmonie, directed by: Georges Delnon), “Saul” (Staatstheater Mainz, directed by: Georges Delnon); “Don Giovanni” (Staatstheater Mainz, directed by: Georges Delnon); “...22,13...” (Co-production of the Munich Biennale with the Staatstheater Mainz and the Festival d'automne à Paris); “Der Alte vom Berge” (Koproduktion des Theater Basel mit den Schwetzinger SWR Festspielen, 2007); seit 2004 Kostümbilder zu Martin Schläpfers Balletten “Frogs and Crows”, “Ritirata notturna”, “Diabelli-Variationen”, “Reformationssymphonie”, “3” und “Pezzi und Tänze”; “Unleashing the Wolf” (Ballett am Rhein), “La Traviata” (Staatstheater Mainz, directed by: Vera Nemirova); “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” (Theater Erfurt/Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, directed by: Vera Nemirova), et al.

Career stages:
Costumes management at Luzerner Theater; Guest engagements at the theaters in Saarbrücken, Hannover, Wuppertal, Dortmund, Mainz, Theater in der Josefstadt Wien, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Festspielhaus Baden Baden, several Swiss stages (Opera and drama productions)

Cooperations:
Georges Delnon, Martin Schläpfer, Vera Nemirova, et al.

Performances

• Die Illusionen des William Mallory

photo: Philipp Göbel

Dramaturgy

Ralf Waldschmidt

Birthplace:
Hanau on the Main, Germany

Studies:
Studied German, English and Theatre Studies at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt on the Main; received his doctorate (Dr. phil.) with a thesis on Richard Wagner's “Parsifal” (1987)

Relation to the Hamburg State Opera
leading Dramaturge at the Hamburg State Opera since the 2021/22 season

Career stages:
Intendant of the Osnabrück Theatre (2011–2021), opera director at the Augsburg Theatre (2007–2011), chief dramaturge and deputy to the general director at the Bremen Theatre, dramaturge at the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden (1999–2003), Engagements as head dramaturge and member of the artistic management at the Staatstheater Darmstadt and the Freiburg Theatre, dramaturge at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and the Nationaltheater Mannheim (1987–1992), assistant director and dramaturge at the Saarländisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken and the Frankfurt Opera

Cooperations:
Ruth Berghaus, Jürgen Flimm, Nicolas Brieger, Bruno Klimek, Harry Kupfer, Urs Troller, Rosamund Gilmore, Urs Schaub, Peter Mussbach, Percy Adlon, Alexander May, Barrie Kosky, Yona Kim, Reinhild Hoffmann und Dirigenten wie Friedemann Layer, Marc Albrecht, Michael Gielen, Daniel Barenboim, Philippe Jordan, Lawrence Renes, Stefan Klingele, Sebastian Weigle, Dirk Kaftan, Andreas Hotz, Daniel Inbal, et al.

Performances

• Die Illusionen des William Mallory

Mitglieder des Philharmonischen Staatsorchesters Hamburg

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, Sir Neville Marriner, Valery Gergiev 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. 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 undertook a successful three-week concert tour in South America, a tour of Spain followed in 2019. 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 at ECM.

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.

Performances

• 3rd Academy Concert
• Dollhouse
• PhiSch - das Staatsorchester hautnah...
• Die Illusionen des William Mallory
• Die verlorene Melodie

photo: Foto: Felix Broede