“I believe we have found in Lothar Koenigs the perfect music director for WNO,” said John Fisher, General Director. “He is a brilliant musician, who will bring to this position an acute intelligence and broad cultural experience at international level. WNO can only gain from Lothar's extraordinary artistic sensibility and huge enthusiasm for opera as both a musical and theatrical form.
“I'm particularly excited about one of the highlights of his first season – when he will conduct our new production of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.”
Lothar Koenigs said: “I am very much looking forward to joining this great company as Music Director, particularly because the collaborations I have had with this wonderful ensemble, orchestra and chorus, have been so stimulating and rewarding.”
Born in Aachen in 1965, Lothar studied piano and conducting at Cologne Conservatory. He was General Music Director in Osnabruck until 2003 and conducts at Hamburg State Opera, Rome Opera, Opéra de Lyon, Semperoper Dresden and Vienna State Opera and Metropolitan Opera. In Spring 2004, he conducted a widely acclaimed Wozzeck at Opéra de Lyon and was then invited to conduct the Janácek trilogy Jenufa, Katya Kabanova and The Makropoulos Case. He also received the Premio Abiata award for conducting Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers in Ancona.
He made his debut with WNO conducting the Orchestra of WNO at St David's Hall, Cardiff, in January 2005. In 2007, he conducted Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina and the Orchestra of WNO in a concert of work by Schoenberg and Brahms. Prior to taking up his appointment as Music Director for WNO, Lothar will conduct Salome for the Company in Spring 2009 and a concert with the Orchestra of WNO at St David's Hall, Cardiff, in January 2009.
Other engagements in the 2008-2009 season include Katya Kabanova in Cologne, Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and concerts at Teatro Massimo in Palermo. In Summer 2008, Lothar leads a new production of Krenek's Karl V at the Bregenz Festival.
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