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William Lacey (born 31 August 1973 in London, England) is a British conductor. He is especially known as an opera conductor, having conducted a large number of operas at companies all over the world. [1]
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William Lacey (born 31 August 1973 in London, England) is a British conductor. He is especially known as an opera conductor, having conducted a large number of operas at companies all over the world. [1]
Lacey grew up in Islington, London. His mother is Nicola Beauman, the founder of Persephone Books. [2] His father is the architect Nick Lacey. He attended Winchester College and went on to study at King's College, Cambridge (first-class degree in music) and privately with Alfred Brendel and György Kurtág. [3] At Cambridge, he concentrated on Wagner studies with John Deathridge and general musical education with Robin Holloway. He also conducted all of the main Cambridge University orchestras and organised concerts of new music at Kettle's Yard. As a pianist, he attended courses at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall.
Lacey began his conducting career in 1995, conducting modern operas in London, at Almeida Opera (Almeida Theater) and elsewhere. Following his debut at English National Opera in 1998, he took up the post of Staff Conductor at San Francisco Opera for three years, conducting a wide variety of repertoire and assisting Donald Runnicles, Valery Gergiev and Sir Charles Mackerras. [4]
As a guest conductor, Lacey has conducted at many different opera houses in both the USA and Europe, including Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, New York City Opera, Canadian Opera Company, the Liceu in Barcelona, Stockholm Royal Opera, Norwegian National Opera, Greek National Opera, Opera North (Leeds) and l'Opéra Comique in Paris. [1] He has conducted four productions with Graham Vick's Birmingham Opera Company, [5] and has collaborated often with stage director Christopher Alden. He is also active as a symphonic conductor, especially in Germany, Austria, Spain and Italy.
In 2010 he was appointed Erster (Koordinierter) Kapellmeister at the Oper Leipzig, where he conducts the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. [6] He has received much attention recently for his regular performances with Plácido Domingo, including Handel's "Tamerlano" in Barcelona, Washington, and Los Angeles, and Gluck's "Iphigénie en Tauride" in Washington. [7]
In 2012 he conducted the world premiere of Jonathan Dove's "Life is a Dream", [8] and the first Moscow performances since 1965 of Benjamin Britten's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". [9]
Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer. Born in Berlin, he escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, was naturalised as a French citizen in 1938, and settled in the United States in 1939. He worked closely with Gustav Mahler, whose music he helped to establish in the repertory, held major positions with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Salzburg Festival, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Deutsche Oper Berlin, among others, made recordings of historical and artistic significance, and is widely considered to be one of the great conductors of the 20th century.
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Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, located 7 miles (11 km) north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After creating the Opera Association of New Mexico in 1956, its founding director, John Crosby, oversaw the building of the first opera house on a newly acquired former guest ranch of 199 acres (0.81 km2).
Yerma is an opera in three acts by Heitor Villa-Lobos based on the tragedy of the same name by Federico García Lorca.
Paul Daniel is an English conductor.
Harry Alexander Clarence Bicket is a British conductor, harpsichordist and organist. He is particularly associated with the baroque and classical repertoire.
Sir Donald Cameron Runnicles OBE HonFRSE is a Scottish conductor.
Michail Vladimirovich Jurowski was a Russian conductor who worked internationally, based in Germany for most of his career. He was particularly interested in the works of Dmitri Shostakovich, in concerts and recordings.
Joyce DiDonato is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. She is notable for her interpretations of operas and concert works in the 19th-century romantic era in addition to works by Handel and Mozart.
Rory Macdonald is a Scottish conductor.
Rachel Willis-Sørensen is an American operatic soprano.
(Andrew) Alexander Briger AO is an Australian classical conductor. He is the nephew of the conductor Sir Charles Mackerras, and both are descended from the composer Isaac Nathan.
Sebastian Weigle is a German conductor and horn player. He is currently Generalmusikdirektor of the Oper Frankfurt and principal conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.
Brenda Rae is an American operatic soprano who has performed leading roles in opera houses internationally. She has been a resident artist at the Frankfurt Opera from 2008 till 2017. She is a featured performer on the Naxos Records 2015 recording of Milhaud's L'Orestie d'Eschyle which was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.
Leo Hussain is a British conductor, who has mainly concentrated on opera. After tenures as music director of the Rouen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Salzburger Landestheater, he has worked freelance directing operas at major houses in Europe, such as Bizet's Carmen at the Royal Danish Theatre, Korngold's Die tote Stadt at the Théâtre du Capitole, and Weinberg's Die Passagierin at the Oper Frankfurt. He has also conducted outside Europe, for example Capriccio by Richard Strauss at the Santa Fe Opera, as well as concerts in Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
Lioba Braun is a German opera singer and academic teacher at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. Based at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, she has appeared mostly in mezzo-soprano parts at major opera houses and festivals. She became internationally known appearing as Brangäne at the Bayreuth Festival in 1994, and performed the soprano part of Isolde on stage first in 2012.
Joan Carroll is an American operatic coloratura soprano who appeared in the title role of Alban Berg's Lulu at the work's US premiere at the Santa Fe Opera in 1963, and often in opera houses in Europe. She premiered vocal music by Aribert Reimann and Wilhelm Killmayer, among others.
Alfred Kirchner is a German actor, theatre director and theatre manager who is based in Berlin. He worked at theatres such as Theater Bremen, Schauspielhaus Bochum, the Burgtheater in Vienna and the Staatliche Schauspielbühnen Berlin, before turning to freelance work. He has staged productions in Europe and North America, including several world premieres of both drama and opera. He directed the premiere of Martin Walser's Ein Kinderspiel in Stuttgart in 1971, the U.S. premiere of Henze's We Come to the River at the Santa Fe Opera in 1984, and the premiere of Hans Zender's Stephen Climax at the Oper Frankfurt in 1986. In 1994, he staged Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival.
Anthony Robin Schneider is an operatic bass from New Zealand, based in Germany at the Oper Frankfurt. He has appeared in leading roles internationally, such as Truffaldino in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Santa Fe Opera, Sarastro in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Houston Grand Opera, and Fafner in Wagner's Das Rheingold at the Tiroler Festspiele in Erl.
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