nabucco

Alvise Casellati is the Founder and Music Director of „Opera Italiana is in the Air“, a concert series launched in 2017 that aims to bring the beauty of Italian opera to everyone. In addition to the artistic aspect, the focus is also on social commitment, including collaboration with the world's leading cancer research centers.

Casellati made his debut in Italy in 2011 at the famous Teatro La Fenice in Venice, where he conducted the concert celebrating the 150th anniversary of the unity of Italy. As resident conductor of the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, he made his operatic debut in 2014 with Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, followed by Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore.

Well versed in both operatic and symphonic repertoire, he has performed in the most important international theaters and major music festivals:

Most recently at the Spoleto Two Worlds Festival with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in the Spoleto Cathedral with rarely performed works by Holst, Kantscheli and Bernstein. Other recent performances include the "Opera Italiana is in the Air" concerts in Piazza di Siena, Rome and Central Park, New York. Here the format experienced a true rebirth - in honor of the 100th birthday of tenor Enrico Caruso: It was the first opera performances after the lockdown in New York. He also recently recorded the project "Da Ponte & Friends" for Sky Italia at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza.

Casellati is also present at festivals such as Arena di Verona, Ravello, Un'Estate da Re' Reggia di Caserta, Ljubljana, Teatro Greco Taormina, Cartagena Festival Internacional de Música, Villa Bellini Catania, Nervi International Music Festival, Gabala International Music Festival, La Versiliana, Emilia Romagna (with actor John Malkovich making his Italian debut), the Viva Musica! Slovakia, Valle d'Itria, MittelFest Friuli and the Baltic Music Seasons Latvia. He has worked internationally with major theaters and orchestras such as the Mariinsky Theater St. Petersburg, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Rome, the Maribor National Symphony Orchestra, the New York Chamber Virtuosi, the Turin Orchestra Filarmonica and the Benevento Orchestra Filarmonica.

Casellati is a trained violinist. After graduating with Guido Furini at the Conservatory of Music “C. Pollini” in his hometown of Padua, he specialized with Felice Cusano and Taras Gabora. He was trained as a conductor by Leopold Hager at the Vienna Music Academy. From 2007 he continued his conducting studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.

Francisco Negrin studied film before moving to the world of opera. Engagements have led to many of the most important opera houses and festivals in Europe, America and Australia. Negrin's steadily growing portfolio of works includes more than fifty major opera productions. These include Handel's Orlando for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Salome in Valencia, Fidelio and Arabella at De Vlaamse Opera, Mitridate, Norma, Schoek's Venus and Ginastera's Beatrix Cenci for the Grand Théâtre de Genève, La clemenza di Tito at the Gran Teatre del Liceu and The Merry Widow in Leipzig.

His production of Idomeneo at the Aalto-Musiktheater Essen was critically acclaimed, and his North American engagements include Händel's Rinaldo at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Werther in San Francisco and Chicago, Agrippina and Alceste at the Santa Fe Festival and Don Giovanni for Glimmerglass and New York City Opera. At the Royal Danish Opera he has presented Partenope, Giulio Cesare, Alcina and the premieres of Poul Ruders The Trial and Hans Abrahamsen's The Snow Queen.

Thanassis Demiris studied architecture at Roger Williams University in Bristol, USA, at Wroxton College in the UK and at C.V.U. Technicke in Prague.

He has been working as an architect and set designer since 2000 and since 2007 he has been a founding member of Flux-Office, a multidisciplinary office for architecture, design, theatre, opera, dance and cinema whose work has been shown and awarded in Greece and internationally. His list of works includes:

• 38th European Capital of Culture, Eleusis Greece (2021-3) with "Mystery 6 – Paradise"

• 18th Panamerican Games, Lima (2019) as Production Designer for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies

• 4. Islamic Solidarity Games, Baku Azerbaijan (2017), as production designer for the opening event and the closing ceremony

• 1st European Games, Baku Azerbaijan (2015), as Production Designer for Opening Ceremony – EMMY nomination for Art Direction

• 14th Venice Architecture Biennale (2014) as part of the Greek national participation

• 70th Venice Film Festival with the film Miss Violence (2013) which won the Silver Lion, Coppa Volpi Award, Fedeora Critics Award and Arca Award

• 12th Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (2011), winning the gold medal for the best work in theater architecture and performance space within the framework of the official Greek participation

• Architectural exhibition “Made in Greece” at Harvard University, Graduate School of Design (2011)

• 22nd Piranesi Award, Piran - Slovenia (2010), nomination for a multifunctional theater foyer space

• 6th Athens Architecture Biennale (2010)

The art director, costume designer and set designer for opera and theatre has worked between Lima and Spain for the last 15 years, designing costumes and sets for opera, theater and ballet with his experimental, playful and colorful style.

His work as a costume designer in Spain includes El Rey que rabio (2007) for the Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid, Les Contes d'Hoffmann (2009) for the Las Palmas Opera Festival, Gran Canaria, the play Celebration (2010) for Centro Dramatico Nacional, Madrid and the operas Marina (2013) and Pagliacci (2014), both for the Teatro de la Zarzuela.

At the same time he designed the costumes and sets for the operas The Magic Flute (2013) and Carmen (2015) and for the ballet Alice in Wonderland (2016) with the Peruvian National Ballet in Peru, all of which are staged at the Gran Teatro Nacional. He also works as an art director for various TV commercials in Lima.

Recent work includes designing costumes and sets for La cantada vida y muerte del general Malbru, a Teatro de la Zarzuela production for the 2015 Almagro Festival, costume design for Stravinsky's opera The Rake's Progress (2015) on Teatro Nacional San Carlos, Lisbon, costume design for the contemporary opera Pinocchio (2016) in a Teatro de la Zarzuela production and for La Conquista de Jerusalén in an Antiqua Escena production for the Almagro Festival 2016. He was also responsible for the Costume design for Enseñanza Libre and La gatita blanca, a musical revue at the Teatro de la Zarzuela.

Bruno Poet works in the fields of opera, theatre, dance and live music. He has designed stages for many of the world's leading opera houses, with Rusalka (Sydney Opera House) winning the Australian Green Room Award.

He has won three “Knight of Illumination Awards”: 2019 the USA Awards for Festival/One-off Lighting for Björk's Cornucopia (with Richard White), one for the 2013 Sigur Rós World Tour and one for Frankenstein at the National Theatre London, for which he also won the Olivier Award for Best Lighting Design. He was recently nominated for an Olivier Award for Uncle Vanya in London's West End and for a Drama Desk Award for Tina - the Musical on Broadway.

Walter Zeh was born in Vienna, where he studied at the conservatory and at the University of Music and Performing Arts. In 1970 he was accepted into the Vienna State Opera Chorus with a solo obligation, to which he belonged for 32 years.

He has also made guest appearances as a soloist at numerous major opera houses, including the Munich State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Scala in Milan, in Barcelona, Paris, Salzburg and Japan. As a recital and concert singer, he also pursued a lively activity at home and abroad and worked on CD recordings with the most important conductors.

For years, Walter Zeh has worked as a singing teacher and language coach in opera productions, including at the Opéra Bastille and at the Salzburg Festival. Since 2002 he has worked as a freelance choir director on productions for the Baden-Baden Festival Hall, the Paris Théâtre des Champs Élysées, the Ruhrtriennale, the Salzburg Festival, the Bremen Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Teatro Real Madrid, the Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, the Dortmund Concert Hall, the St. Pölten Festival Hall and the Wiener Musikverein. He has also rehearsed and conducted a concert program with the Chinese National Choir Beijing.

In 2006, Walter Zeh founded the Vienna Philharmonia Choir, with which he prepared the first scenic performance of Parsifal in China (Beijing Music Festival) in 2013 and has been a guest at the "Oper im Steinbruch" since 2015.

Volker Werner trained as a sound engineer at Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna, at University of Miami, Florida and Banff Centre in Canada. With his colleagues Philipp Treiber and David Menke, he founded his own company, PDV Records, specializing in sound systems for concerts, audio and video production as well as film music. PDV have worked for Wiener Festwochen or Disney in Concert, they produced musical TV events such as the national Whitsunday concert from Stift Melk und and have worked in the music team for cinema productions such as Mission Impossible or Alien: Covenant.

They enjoy their successful collaboration with renowned classical music artists such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Diana Damrau, Edita Gruberová and Michael Schade as well as world famous orchestras: the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra or the New York Philharmonic. Volker Werner is teaching at Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna and is deeply involved in the development of 3D audio formats, collaborating with Fraunhofer Institute. He was part of the development team for “Amadeus“ Active Acoustics Systems, debuting with the London Symphony Orchestra and inaugurating the Andermatt Concert Hall with the Berlin Philharmonic. He is responsible for the 3D sound system at the new James Bond Museum ”007 Elements" on top of the Gaislachkogl. Since 2016, Volker Werner and “Oper im Steinbruch“ enjoy their successful partnership.

Born in North Carolina, the Grammy® Award-winning baritone studied music at Appalachian State University, the Eastman School of Music, and Yale University before becoming an Adler Fellow with the San Francisco Opera.

He is one of the most accomplished, in-demand singers of the moment, captivating audiences around the world with his “earnest appealing baritone” (The New York Times) and “commanding presence” (San Francisco Chronicle). “A rock star of opera” (Opera Pulse), Meachem’s 2021/22 season sees his return to Los Angeles Opera (Wolfram in Tannhäuser), Teatro Real Madrid and Metropolitan Opera (Marcello in La Bohème), The Dallas Opera (Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia), Bayerische Staatsoper (Escamillo in Carmen), Royal Opera House (Sharpless in Madama Butterfly), and his debuts at Teatro Udine and Oper im Steinbruch St. Margarethen as Verdi’s Nabucco.

After a year of theatres gone dark, Meachem returned to the stage this past spring where he sang his “signature role for good reason,” (Opera News) as Figaro in San Francisco Opera’s Il barbiere di Siviglia for an innovative “drive-in” experience. Meachem then filmed a movie-version of Pagliacci as the romantic lead Silvio with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, set within their own opera house. Meachem’s 2021 summer included Eugene Onegin at Santa Fe Opera and Gianni Schicchi at Festival Napa Valley with Kent Nagano.

Named the winner of San Francisco Opera’s inaugural “Emerging Star of the Year” Award in 2016, notable performances in Meachem’s American career include marking his 50th role debut as Athanaël in Thaïs (Minnesota Opera), Chorèbe in Les Troyens, Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Valentin in Faust at Chicago Lyric Opera; Eugene Onegin, Don Giovanni and Rossinis Figaro, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, and Fritz/Frank in Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt at San Francisco Opera; General Rayevsky in Prokofiev’s War & Peace, Robert in Iolanta, Marcello in La bohéme, Silvio in Pagliacci, and Mercutio in Roméo and Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera; Don Giovanni with Chicago Lyric Opera, Santa Fe Opera, New Orleans Opera, and Opera Cincinnati Opera; Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles at the Florida Grand Opera; Germont in La traviata at Washington National Opera; Il barbiere di Siviglia at San Diego Opera, Opera Colorado, Houston Grand Opera, and Los Angeles Opera where he also gave his Grammy® Award-winning performance of Figaro in The Ghosts of Versailles.

A regular performer across Europe, Meachem has performed the title role in Il barbiere di Siviglia with the Vienna Staatsoper, Royal Opera House, Den Norske Opera; the title role in Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne Festival and Semperoper Dresden; the title role in Britten’s Billy Budd at Opéra national de Paris; as Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro at Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and Royal Opera House; Wolfram von Eschenbach in Tannhäuser at the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan under the baton of Seiji Ozawa; the title role in Eugene Onegin with Komische Oper Berlin and Opéra national de Montpellier; Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles at Bilbao Opera; Escamillo in Carmen with Teatro Regio di Torino; with the Teatro Real de Madrid in the world premiere of El Viaje a Simorgh, Frank/Fritz in Die Tote Stadt, as well as Oreste in Iphigénie en Tauride; and a European tour with Anna Netrebko as Robert in Iolanta with 11 performances at Europe’s most important musical centers and venues including Vienna, Munich, Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam.

Born in Athens, he studied marketing and languages, saxophone and music theory as well as singing with Kostas Paskalis, Frangiskos Voutsinos and Despina Kalafati in his hometown. In 1999 he received the Maria Callas scholarship in Athens and continued his singing studies in the master class of Daphne Evangelatos at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich. In 2002, Aris Argiris was a prizewinner at the International Singing Competition at the Schloss Rheinsberg Chamber Opera and sang the title role in Don Giovanni. In 2007 he was awarded the Best Young Artist of Greece by the Greek Music Association.

After engagements at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, at the Dortmund Theater and at the Bonn Opera, he was a member of the ensemble at the Frankfurt Opera until the 2010/2011 season. In 2011 he made guest appearances at the Arena di Verona as Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia and in St. Petersburg as Renato in Un ballo in maschera.

Other guest engagements have taken him to e.g. to the opera houses in Athens, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Stockholm, Leipzig, Berlin, London, Brussels, Tokyo, Antwerp-Gent, San Diego, Lima, Buenos Aires, Dresden and Vienna.

His most important roles include Don Giovanni and others. Scarpia, Rigoletto, Amonasro, Renato, Count Luna, Jochanaan, Figaro (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Escamillo, Father Germont, Marcello, Rodrigo di Posa, Count d'Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Lord Enrico Asthon, Frank/Fritz (Die Tote Stadt), Wotan (Das Rheingold/ Die Walküre), Wanderer (Siegfried), The Ruler (Das Wunder der Heliane), Francesco (I masnadieri) and the four villains (Les contes d'Hoffman).

The baritone has worked with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Christian Thielemann, Massimo Zanetti, Kurt Masur, Yakov Kreizberg, Gustav Kuhn, Donato Renzetti, Manfred Honeck, Walter Attanasi, Graeme Jenkins, Carlo Franci, Antonello Allemandi, Patrick Lange and Carlo Rizzi.

In recent years he has made guest appearances in Tokyo, at the Theater St. Gallen in Switzerland, at the Teatro San Carlo di Napoli, at the Hamburg State Opera and at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, at the Theater Bern, at the Musiktheater im Revier, at the Theater an der Wien, with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, at the Theater de la Monnaie, at the Aalto Musiktheater Essen, at the Theater Bonn, at the San Diego Opera, the Opera di Montreal, at the Gärtnerplatztheater Munich, at the Athens Festival, at Gluck International Festival, at the Musiktheater im Revier, at the Chemnitz Opera, at the Semperoper Dresden, at the Vlaamse Opera and at Les Theaters de la Villes de Luxembourg, as well as at the Theater de la Monnaie.

The opera Das Wunder der Heliane, in which he sang the role of The Ruler, was recorded by Naxos at the Freiburg Theater. With the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen he has recorded Ariadne - Dithyrambos for baritone and orchestra by Siegfried Matthus and the aria of Holofernes from the Matthus opera Judith on CD (Genuin label).

As Escamillo in Bizet's "Carmen" he starred in the first 3-D opera film. The production of this opera was recorded in 2010 at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden London.

Since 2016 he has been a professor at University for the Arts in Berlin.

Born in Seoul, Leo An graduated from National University of South Korea and perfected his studies at Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan. Today he is professor at Anyang University in Korea. His signature Verdi role is Rigoletto that he played in Verona, Florence, Lisbon, Bregenz, Bratislava, Prague, Daegu and Milan. He was Nabucco at Washington Opera, sung Gerard in Andrea Chénier, Tonio in I Pagliacci, Lescaut in Manon Lescaut, the title role in Simon Boccanegra (with Myung-Whun Chung conducting) and Escamillo in Carmen, Scarpia in Tosca and Germont in La Traviata. He sang Falstaff at Seoul's National Opera House and in Slovak National Theatre. He was praised as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly at Daegu Opera House (South Korea) and Ping in Turandot in Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, Pavia und Como. Furthermore, his roles include Marcello in La Bohème, the lead role of Torquato Tasso, Luna in Il Trovatore, Ezio in Attila, Renato in Un ballo in maschera, Amonasro in Aida, Valentin in Faust, the title role in Rossini's Guglielmo Tell, Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana und Francesco Foscari in I Due Foscari.

Jinxu Xiahou was born in Zibo in the eastern Chinese province of Shadong in 1990 and began studying with Prof. Wang Xianlin at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 2008.

He made his stage debut as Basilio in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. In 2009 he performed the role of Triquet in Eugene Onegin at the Tianqiao Opera in Beijing, and he made his European debut in 2010 at the “Zurich Classic Night”.

In 2011, Jinxu Xiahou was a finalist in the Bertelsmann Foundation's renowned international singing competition "Neue Stimmen" in Gütersloh, where he won third prize. The following year he made his debut at the Vienna State Opera, of which he has been a permanent member of the ensemble since 2014/2015: since then he has performed there, among others, as Nemorino (L’elisir d‘amore), Don Ramiro (La Cenerentola), Ernesto (Don Pasquale), Malcolm (Macbeth), Gaston (La Traviata), Italienischer Sänger (Der Rosenkavalier), Seemann (Tristan und Isolde), Rodrigo (Otello), Abdallo (Nabucco), Messenger (Aida), Fetodik (Tri Sestri) and Ruiz (Il Trovatore).

The 2017/2018 season brought Jinxu Xiahou his role debut as Rodolfo (La Bohème) and further appearances as Nemorino, Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Macduff, Fenton (Falstaff), Cassio (Otello) and Ruiz, as well as as Scaramuccio in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, as the Third Jew in Salome and as the Italian Singer in Der Rosenkavalier.

In the past 2018/2019 season, Jinxu Xiahou could be heard as Don Ottavio, Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Fenton, Macduff and Pang (Turandot), among others, while in the current season he has also appeared as Rodolfo in Puccini's La Bohème and as Macduff on the stage in Verdi's Macbeth.

In June 2018, Jinxu Xiahou performed at the Vienna State Opera as a soloist in a gala concert by KS Edita Gruberova conducted by Marco Armiliato. He made his debut at the Musikverein in Vienna in May 2017 as part of a Lied recital with works by Schubert and Strauss as well as Tosti, Rossini and Leoncavallo.

The Mexican tenor is currently ensemble member at the Vienna State Opera, where he has performed roles such as Ismaele (Verdi: Nabucco), Cassio (Verdi: Otello), Pang (Puccini: Turandot), Edmondo (Puccini: Manon Lescaut), Nick and Joe ( Puccini: La Fanciulla del West), Jarek Prus (Janaček: Več Markopulos), Narraboth (Strauss: Salome), Beppo (Leoncavallo: I Pagliacci), Incroyable (Giordano: Andrea Chenier), Remendado (Bizet: Carmen) and Sir Bruno Roberton (Bellini: I Puritani). In total, he has been on stage in well over 40 different roles since 2011.

Guest engagements have already taken him to the Semperoper Dresden, where he sang Scaramuccio in a premiere production of Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos under the musical direction of Christian Thielemann, as well as to the opera houses of Leipzig (Marquis in Lulu) and Heidelberg and the Theater Basel. There he was also a member of the opera studio OperAvenir in the 2009/2010 season. His wide repertoire also includes roles such as Alfredo (Verdi: La Traviata), Rodolfo (Puccini: La Bohème), Pinkerton (Puccini: Madama Butterfly), Kudrjas (Janáček: Katja Kabánovà) and Reverend Horace Adams (Britten: Peter Grimes).

He has worked with artists such as Placido Domingo, Anna Netrebko, Mirella Freni, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Juan Diego Florez and Ramon Vargas. Conductors with whom Carlos Osuna has sung include Simone Young, Marco Armillato, Franz Welser-Möst, Christian Thielemann, Giampaolo Bisanti, Alain Altinoglu and Peter Schneider. As part of his concert activities, he has already performed at the Wiener Musikverein, the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Palacio de Bellas Artes Mexico, the Binka Kaikan in Tokyo and the Salle des Combins in Verbier.

The South Korean bass was born in Seoul and studied singing at the Korean National University of Arts. As a member of the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala, Milan, he was taught by Mirella Freni, Luciana Serra, Luigi Alva and Renato Bruson. Park was the winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Song Prize in 2015 and was a member of the prestigious ensemble at Wiener Staatsoper from 2013 until 2019.

This 2021/22 season saw Jongmin perform at the Deutsche Staatsoper as Abimélech in Samson et Dalila, as well as Teatro alla Scala as Cappelio in I Capuleti e I Montecchi, and Teatro Real Madrid as Ramfis in Aida.

Recent opera highlights include debuts at Teatro Real Madrid and at Opéra de Rouen Normandie. He has also performed at The Metropolitan Opera as Colline in La bohème, and at the Wiener Staatsoper in productions of Il trovatore (Ferrando), Die Zauberflöte (Sarastro), Il barbiere di Siviglia (Basilio), Rusalka (Vodník), Manon (Le Comte des Grieux) and Le nozze di Figaro (Figaro). Jongmin has also performed the roles of Narbal and Raimondo in new productions of Les Troyens and Lucia di Lammermoor.

Other highlights include opera productions at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Savonlinna Opera Festival, where Jongmin has played Sir Giorgio in I puritani and Lodovico in Otello. Park has also sung at the Salzburg Festival and the Salzburg Easter Festival under the baton of Christian Thielemann.

On the concert platform, Jongmin has appeared at the BBC Proms, at the Wiener Konzerthaus in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, and at the Royal Festival Hall with The Philharmonia under Edward Gardner. Park has also performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the London Symphony Orchestra, and with the NHK Orchestra in Japan under Herbert Blomstedt. He has performed solo recitals in Munich and Frankfurt, as well as the Musikverein in Vienna and Wigmore Hall.

In addition to the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2015, other prizes and competitions he has won include the International Tchaikovsky Competition, and the Birgit Nilsson Wagner-Award at Operalia.

Born in Arco near Trient, he got a first class diploma at the "Conservatorio di Bolzano" under the teachings of Vito Maria Brunetti.

In 1993 he made his debut with I quattro rusteghi at Aslico in Milan. In 1995 wins the competition at Teatro Lirico Sprimentale Adriano Belli in Spoleto and in 1996 the award "Premio Musica Riva" and in 1997 he wins the TV competition "Vincerò".

In Italy he sang in theathers and festivals in Milano (La Scala), Florence, Palermo, Venice, Pesaro, Bologna, Genova, Cagliari, Naples, Torino, Trieste, Ferrara, Reggio Emilia, Bolzano, Verona, Vicenza, Bari and at Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

Abroad he sang with houses and festivals such as Salzburg Festival, Liceu in Barcelona, Dresden Music Festival, Welsh National Opera, La Coruna, Royal Philarmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Edinburgh Festival, Strasbourg Festival, Festival de Canarias, Festival di Primavera di Lugano, Wexford Festival, Konzerthaus Vienna, Theater an der Wien, Festival Aix-en-Provence, Festival de Radio France, Montpellier, Lyon, Tokyo, Bruxelles, Klagenfurt, Oporto, Oper Köln, Oper Graz, Hamburg State Opera Las Palmas, Tenerife, El Escorial de Madrid, Tel Aviv, Lisbon, Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires.

He has worked with renowned conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Daniele Gatti, Jesús López Cobos, András Schiff, Andrea Battistoni, Daniel Harding, Donato Renzetti, Daniele Rustioni, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Carlo Rizzi, Jonathan Webb, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Gianandrea Noseda, Corrado Rovaris, Ottavio Dantone, Victor Pablo Perez, Alain Lombard, Jordi Savall, Alberto Zedda, Bruno Campanella, Fabio Luisi, Michele Mariotti, Marcello Viotti, John Neschling, James Conlon, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Louis Langrée, Evelino Pidò and Maurizio Benini.

He has been directed by Peter Brook, Robert Carsen, Tony Servillo, Piera Degli Esposti, Ettore Scola, Mario Martone, Michele Placido, Leo De Berardinis, Daniele Abbado, Ermanno Olmi, Mario Pontiggia, Davide Livermore, Joan Font (els Comediants), Michael Hampe and Jonathan Miller.

Nicola Ulivieri won Premio Abbiati in 2006, a prestigious italian critics' acknowledgment rewarding his Mozart performances.

The Italian soprano, born in Livorno in 1984, studied viola and piano since her early days. As a singer, she graduated from Conservatorio Boccherini in Lucca where she also refined her technique in drama and acting with renowned international theatre experts.

Valentina gave her professional operatic debut at Teatro Goldoni in her native Livorno as Giulietta in Les contes d'Hoffmann and reprised this role at Pisa's Teatro Verdi. Very soon she could establish herself in leading soprano roles throughout Italy, performing Mimì (La Bohème), Aida, Alice Ford (Falstaff), Adalgisa (Norma), Santuzza and Suor Angelica in prestigious theatres such as Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Teatro Lirico in Cagliari, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova or at Parma's Verdi Festival. In 2018 she gave her debut at La Scala in Milan in Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini after debuting Tosca in Skopje. In 2015 she was Giorgetta in Il tabarro at the world-famous Puccini festival in Torre del Lago.

Recent engagements included Amelia (Un ballo in maschera) at Teatro Regio in Parma, Adriana Lecouvreur und Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) both at Teatro Filarmonico in Verona and Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova and Mariella (Mascagni's Il piccolo Marat) in Livorno. Most recentliy she could be heard in important roles in Cluj (Romania): as Minnie (Puccini's La fanciulla del west) and Elisabetta (Don Carlos) as well as Abigaille (Nabucco).

Alongside her operatic engagements, Valentina is a busy and sought-after concert artist.

Born in Yerevan, Armenia, the soprano learned to play the piano at the age of eight. When her family moved to Moscow, her voice was discovered at the age of ten and she was accepted into the children's choir at the music school there, where she received her first singing lessons.

When she returned to Armenia, she completed her piano studies with a diploma and began her singing studies in 2002 at the State Music Academy in Yerevan. In her third year she was admitted to the opera studio and gained her first stage experience as Lisa in Pique Dame, Tatiana in Eugen Onegin and Zemfira in Aleko. In 2007 she came to Austria and attended the opera class at the Vienna Conservatory. Her roles in opera studies included Michaela, Violetta, Countess (Wiener Blut) but also the mother in Hänsel and Gretel.

Astrik Khanamiryan made her first professional stage experiences in Austria in Palais Palffy with the Vienna Mozart Orchestra as Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute) and Adele (Die Fledermaus). She has also been heard as Abigaille in a concert performance of Nabucco with the Prayner Conservatory Orchestra. The young soprano was also able to gain concert experience and sang as a soloist at the Hohenloher Kultursommer and the Musikwelten Schrems with the Donau Philharmonie Wien, at the Burg Gutenberg Classical Evening (Liechtenstein), at the Ammerseerenade Classical Festival (Germany), Viennese Imperial Concerts "Sound of Austria", at the New Year's Concert with the Solothurn City Orchestra (Switzerland) and in Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral, "Italian Opera Night" at the Darmstadt Residence Festival, etc.

In 2014 and 2015 she made guest appearances with the “Tourneeoper Papageno" in the title role of Aida through Germany and Austria. This was followed by engagements at the "Pasinger Fabrik" in Munich as Musetta in the new production of La Bohème and at the Bad Orb Opera Academy (Germany) as Antonia in Les Contes d'Hoffmann. From 2014 to 2018 she was a regular guest at the Romantik Theater Hadres (Austria), where she could be seen and heard in numerous operetta premieres by Roland Baumgartner, such as Die flatterhaften Herzen, Calafati, Rosenkönigin and most recently Ein echter Kavalier. In 2016 she sang the role of Edile in Nicolas Isouard's Opéra comique Abenteuerlust at the Neuburger Kammeroper (Germany), Mimì in La Bohème with the Opernfestival Schloss Amerang (Germany) and the role of Frau Panek in the premiere of Christof Dienz's Soma of the Vienna Chamber Opera in the production of Sirene Operntheater.

In 2017 she sang Nedda in Pagliacci and Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana in Salzburg at the Oper im Berg Festival. In the summer of 2018 she made her debut at the Heidenheim Opera Festival in Germany in Nabucco by G. Verdi with the role of Abigaille. In 2019 she made her debut with the title role in Turandot by G. Puccini at Teatro Massimo in Palermo and with the title role in Giovanna D'Arco by Verdi in Switzerland. In 2020 she sang the role of Anna Bianca in Gino Marinuzzi's opera Palla de' Mozzi at Teatro Lirico di Cagliari.

Her awards include 1st prize at the international singing competition "Grandi Voci" in Salzburg (2016), 1st prize and a special prize at the Int. Singing competition by Marcello Giordani in Noto, Sicily (2018), 1st prize at the international singing competition "Piemonte Opera Voci dal Mondo" in Turin (2018), the Special Diploma Prize of the State Opera Banská Bystrica and the Premio Int. ARCA D'ORO Italia Giovani Talenti Award, both also in 2018.

The Slovenian mezzo-soprano has been a member of the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera since the 2011/2012 season, where in the current 2021/2022 season she has performed roles such as: Fricka (Wagner: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre), Polina and Daphnis (Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame) , Mrs. Quickly (Verdi: Falstaff), Maddalena (Verdi: Rigoletto), Brigitta (Korngold: Die Tote Stadt), Annina (Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier).

Monika Bohinec embodied major roles of her repertoire at the Vienna State Opera, such as Eboli, Azucena, Mrs. Quickly, Ulrica, Fenena (all Verdi ), Ježibaba (Dvořák: Rusalka) and Sara di Nottingham (Donizetti: Roberto Devereux), Erda (Wagner: Das Rheingold und Siegfried), Knusperhexe (Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel), Gora (Reimann: Medea). In new productions she sang the Foreign Princess (Dvořák: Rusalka) and Cassandre (Berlioz: Les Troyens).

Guest engagements have taken Monika Bohinec among others to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Semperoper Dresden, the Frankfurt Opera, the Staatstheater Wiesbaden, the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich, and the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, the Salzburg Festival.

Other roles in which she has also guested internationally include Amneris (Verdi: Aida), Carmen, Maddalena (Verdi: Rigoletto), Ortrud (Wagner: Lohengrin), Brangäne (Wagner: Tristan und Isolde), Sara di Nottingham (Donizetti: Roberto Devereux), Clytemnestra (R.Strauss: Elektra), Princess of Bouillon (Ciela: Adriana Lecouvreur), Giulietta (Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Ulrica (Verdi: Un ballo in maschera), Kontschakowna (Borodin: Fürst Igor) and Marina (Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov).

As a song and concert interpreter, she has already performed a song recital as part of the song stage cycle at the Wiener Musikverein. She was also heard in the Wiener Konzerthaus at the traditional concerts at the turn of the year as a soloist in Beethoven's 9th symphony.

Most recently she sang as a soloist in Rossini's Stabat Mater in Lille and in Schubert's Mass in E minor in Slovenia. Performances on the concert podium have taken her to well-known houses such as the Philharmonie am Gasteig in Munich, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Salle Pleyel in Paris, Carnegie Hall in New York and the Philharmonie in St. Petersburg.

Monika Bohinec can be heard on the complete recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen under Christian Thielemann from the Vienna State Opera and on the recording of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta alongside Anna Netrebko. DVD recordings of her performances at the Salzburg Festival in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Winter’s Das Labyrinth have also been released.

The mezzosoprano was born in Torgau and received violin lessons before studying singing with Prof. Elvira Dreßen and Prof. Roland Schubert at the University of Music and Theater in Leipzig. In master classes she worked with Christa Ludwig, Brigitte Fassbaender and Franz Grundheber.

From 2009 to 2011 Marie-Luise Dreßen was a member of the ensemble of the Theater Gera-Altenburg, where she performed, among others, Orlofsky (Die Fledermaus), composer (Ariadne auf Naxos), Dejanira (Hercules), Romeo (I Capuleti e i Montecchi) and Nele (Ulenspiegel). In 2010 she took on the role of Sieglinde (Die Walküre) in a concert performance at the end of the Richard Wagner Festival in Leipzig, and in 2011 she made her debut as Octavian at the Malmö Opera.

From 2011 to 2016, she was a member of the ensemble at the Theater Luzern, where she performed roles including Orlando, Sesto (La clemenza di Tito), Eliza (My Fair Lady), Angelina (La cenerentola), Ruggiero (Alcina), Mercedes (Carmen), Nancy (Albert Herring), Adalgisa (Norma), Valencienne (The Merry Widow) and Mrs. Lovett (Sweeney Todd).

In January 2011 she sang in the world premiere of Simon Wills' The stolen smells at Kampnagel under the baton of Thomas Hengelbrock and with the NDR Symphony Orchestra. In 2015 she made her debut at the Theater Basel in the Hölderlin production by Peter Ruzicka and Vera Nemirova and sang the main role of Fausta in the music theater project The Voices of the Women from the River by Howard Arman, directed by Carlus Padrissa (Fura dels baus).

This was followed by the roles of Hänsel, Bersi (Andrea Chenier), Rosina (Barber of Seville), Frau Reich (The Merry Wives of Windsor), Wellgunde and Siegrune in Der Ring des Nibelungen, Baba the Turk (The Rake's Progress) and Meg Page in Falstaff as a company member of Staatstheater Kassel under the direction of Francesco Angelico. In 2018 she made her debut at the Bastille in Paris as flower maiden in Parsifal under the baton of Philippe Jordan.

Marie-Luise Dreßen has been working as a freelancer since the 19/20 season. In the summer of 2019 she sang the 3. Dame in The Magic Flute at Oper im Steinbruch St. Margarethen under the musical direction of Karsten Januschke, at the Teatro Real in Madrid under Ivor Bolton and at the Opera Bastille under Cornelius Meister. Followed by the role of Rossweisse in Wagner's Walküre at the Opera Bastille under the baton of Philippe Jordan.

In the 2021/22 season, Marie-Luise Dreßen returns to the Bastille as the 3rd maid in Elektra and to Oper im Steinbruch St. Margarethen as Fenena in Nabucco.

Marie-Luise Dreßen is also a regular guest on the concert stage as an alto soloist and works with the pianists Alexander Schmalcz and Eric Schneider. In 2010 she received the theater Oscar of the Bühnen Altenburg, was voted the favorite of the theater audience in Gera in 2012 and received the Prix Gala of the Lucerne theater club in 2014. In 2013 she was nominated for her interpretation of Sesto (La clemenza di Tito) and in 2014 for Ruggiero (Alcina) in the magazine "Opernwelt" as "Best Young Artist". In 2019 she was awarded the Irma Jansa Prize at the Kassel State Theater.

Ivan Zinoviev was born in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, Russia. At the age of 7 he appeared publicly at singing competitions and at the age of 8 he regularly had solo performances in the children's choir of the Krasnoyarsk State Opera Theater.

In 2009 he completed his vocal studies at the Gnesins State Music Academy in Moscow with distinction. Since 2010, the young singer has been doing his master's degree at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna with Mag. Yuli Khomenko. In addition to his studies, he has numerous solo appearances in various opera productions, including several festivals in Austria, but also at 1CCTV in Beijing, China, in Tel Aviv, Israel and in Cape Town, South Africa.

He is currently a member of the Jungen Ensemble des Theater an der Wien (JET), where he has acted in R. Strauss' Salome, in Leoncavallo's Zazà and in Lortzing's Der Waffenschmied and as Grand Inquisiteur in Verdi's Don Carlo, Olivier in Picker's Thérèse Raquin and Don Basilio could be seen in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. His other roles include Osmin, Sarastro, Leporello, Figaro (all Mozart), and Ferrando in Verdi's Il trovatore.

Ivan is an active participant in workshops such as with Professor Dmitriy Vdovin in the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow or with Placido Domingo. Ivan is currently perfecting his studies with Maestro Kammersänger Professor Jewgenij Nesterenko in Vienna.

Born in Kranj, Slovenia, the tenor studied solo singing with Prof. Claudia Visca at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. In 2015 he completed his bachelor's degree with honors. Since then he’s studying for a master’s degree in Lied & Oratorio at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and is supervised in the classes of Prof. Claudia Visca and Prof. KS Robert Holl. He also studied composition at the Conservatory of Music and Ballet in Ljubljana.

He has worked with numerous musicians such as the Slovenian Chamber Choir, the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, the RTV Slovenija Orchestra, the RTV Slovenija Big Band, the Prussian Chamber Orchestra, the Johann Strauss Operetta Vienna and the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra.

Since 2012 he performed as Pierrino in Giuditta (F. Lehár), as Alonso in Schubert's Die Freunde von Salamanca at the “OperOderSpree” summer festival, as Fridolin in Nestroy's Tannhäuser at the Rheinsberg Opera Festival, as Alfred in J. Strauß' Die Fledermaus, as Joabel in David et Jonathas by M.A. Charpentier and as Ferrando in Cosi fan Tutte, as Don Curzio and Don Basilio in Le Nozze di Figaro at “isaOperaVienna” and as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni by W. A. Mozart.

He was also a guest at the Schönbrunn Palace Theater, at the Oper im Steinbruch in St. Margarethen, at the Vienna Concert Hall, in the Vienna Chamber Opera, in the Valtice Palace Theater, in the New Studio Stage in Vienna and at the Stadttheater Schaffhauser in Switzerland and at the festival "We are Vienna".

Other roles include Lenski in Eugene Onegin, Borsa in Rigoletto, Tamino, Sempronio in Haydn's Lo speziale, Gernando in Haydn's L'isola disabitata, Simon in Der Bettelstudent, Beppe in Pagliacci, Gaston in Schwergewicht (Krenek), The Officer in Der Dikator ( Krenek), Dr. Blind in Die Fledermaus and Fenton in Falstaff.

He also sang The Sun God in the world premiere of René Clemencic's opera Gilgamesh with the sirene opera theater.

His concert repertoire includes works by Bach (Johannes Passion, Weihnachtsoratorium, Magnificat), Händel (Samson), Mozart (Requiem) and Stravinsky (Renard).

At the Bruna Špiler 2011 competition in Montenegro, he took 1st place. He received a scholarship from the SIAA Foundation Lichtenstein and the Ministry of Science and Culture of the Republic of Slovenia. He attended master classes with Piotr Beczala, Snezana Nena Brzaković and KS Peter Maus.

The young soprano Amélie Hois was born in Austria (Vienna), where she made her first experiences with classical music and sang in the children's choir of the Vienna State Opera. There she sang many solo roles as a small child, such as the shepherd boy in Tosca. She studied solo singing with Michele Crider and acting at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg and graduated summa cum laude in June 2018. In addition to singing, she also studied contrabass at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Her first role ever was in 2011 as Rowan in Britten's The Little Sweep as a children's opera at the Vienna State Opera. In 2013 she made her operatic debut as Bastienne in Bastien und Bastienne. At the age of 14, Amélie sang the solo role of the young girl in the musical Cabaret at the Volkstheater Wien, conducted by Michael Schottenberg.

At the age of 19, she sung the role of Gretel in Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel at the Miami Summer Music Festival in the USA. In 2016 she moved to Italy to study at the Conservatorio di Giuseppe Verdi in Milan. This was followed by the roles of Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Nannetta in Verdi's Falstaff and Pamina, with appearances at the opera house in Kosice/Slovakia, at the Theater MuTh in Vienna and at the Passion Artists open-air festival. She also made her debut as a soloist in May 2019 at the Wiener Musikverein with Vera Karner and Dominik Wagner.

She was in the finals of many important competitions such as the "Concorso Aslico" in Como and won the Nico Dostal Prize of the "International Nico Dostal Operetta Competition" in 2018. In April 2021 she was a finalist in the "ZukunftsStimmen" competition with Elina Garanca and Karel Mark Chichon.

In addition to studying solo singing, she also studied acting at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. Already as a young girl she was in front of the camera in the famous Dornhelm film adaptation of the opera La Boheme with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon. Since Amélie also speaks Italian, English, French and Spanish fluently, she not only acts in German, but also in many international films. In 2020 she made several short films and in 2021 she starred in the Austrian documentary A time travel into Music and Media by Peter Eipeldauer.

Philharmonia Chor Wien were founded in 2002 following an initiative of former Salzburg festival general manager, Gérard Mortier. The chorus have worked with world-famous conductors: Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Christian Thielemann, Riccardo Muti a.o.

In summer 2013, the Philharmonia Chorus' singers were hired by the Salzburg festival to sing in Verdi's Falstaff under Zubin Mehta and Giovanna d'Arco under Paolo Carignani. An especially remarkable event war the first staged production of Wagner's Parsifal in China, under the baton of Gustav Kuhn for the Beijing Music Festival 2013. With great success, the Philharmonia Chorus appeared in Baden-Baden for the Easter Festival in 2014 with Puccini's Manon Lescaut and in 2015 with Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. Furthermore, the Baden-Baden audience saw the chorus with Gounod's Faust under Thomas Hengelbrock and Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito under Stefan Soltesz with the Munich Philharmonic. They sang Don Giovanni at the Salzburg festival under Christoph Eschenbach und Donizetti's La Favorite under Roberto Abbado, followed in 2016 by Tristan und Isolde, Tosca in 2017 and again Faust, this time with the Vienna Philharmonic and Alejo Perez conducting. They joined Plácido Domingo in a concert performance of Massenet's Thais. After Tosca, L'elisir d'amore, Rigoletto and Die Zauberflöte, this is Philharmonia Chorus' fifth summer with “Oper im Steinbruch“.