Sebastian Weigle

Born in Berlin in 1961, Sebastian Weigle studied horn, piano, and conducting at the "Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler" and was appointed principal horn of the Staatskapelle Berlin in 1982. In 1987, he founded the Kammerchor Berlin and served as Artistic Director of the New Berlin Chamber Orchestra. In 1993, he became Chief Conductor of the Junge Philharmonie Brandenburg. From 1997 to 2002, he was the Staatskapellmeister at the Berlin State Opera. His engagements have taken him to opera houses in Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Hamburg, Zurich, Mannheim, the Vienna State Opera and Volksoper, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and Tokyo. In concert, he has conducted prestigious orchestras, including the radio orchestras of Berlin, Munich, Vienna, and Stuttgart, the Bamberg Symphony, and major Scandinavian orchestras, as well as in cities outside of Europe like Tokyo, Chicago, and Melbourne. Following several highly successful productions at the Frankfurt Opera—such as Die Frau ohne Schatten, for which he was named "Conductor of the Year" in 2003 by the critics of the magazine Opernwelt—Sebastian Weigle took over the musical leadership of the Frankfurt Opera at the beginning of the 2008/09 season, a position he still holds today. Additionally, from 2004 to 2009, he served as Chief Conductor at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, where he was awarded "Best Production of the Year" in 2005 for his conducting of Parsifal and named "Conductor of the Year" in 2006 for Korngold's Die tote Stadt. In the summer of 2007, he made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival with a new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Since the 2019/20 season, Sebastian Weigle has been the Chief Conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra (YNSO) in Tokyo. He continues to serve as General Music Director in Frankfurt, conducting the new productions of Grand Macabre and Boris Godunow in the 2020/21 season, alongside revivals of Siegfried, Lady Macbeth of Mzensk, and Eugene Onegin. In the 2020/21 season, he will also return to the Vienna State Opera with Arabella, to the Bavarian State Opera with Die Frau ohne Schatten, and to the Metropolitan Opera with Lulu, conducting the Dresden Philharmonic in Europe alongside his concert commitments at the Frankfurt Museum Concerts. At the Vienna State Opera, he has conducted Boris Godunow, Der Freischütz, Die Zauberflöte, Fidelio, and Lohengrin.