Advent Concert of ZDF

Marie Jacquot stands out of the numerous young conducting talents due to her interest in exploring a wideranging repertoire, her consistent rehearsal work and her inspiring interpretations on the podium and in the pit alike.

In the 2021/22 season, the designated chief conductor of the Royal Danish Theater made her acclaimed debuts at the Semperoper Dresden ("Der Goldene Drache", "Carmen"), with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Dresden Philharmonic and she returned to the Stuttgart State Opera ("Don Giovanni"), the Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin and mdr-Symphony Orchestra.

In the season 2022/23, Marie Jacquot will make her concert debut with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and debuts with the Bayerischer Rundfunk Munich, WDR Cologne and hr Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestras, while returning to the Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the Malmö SymfoniOrkester. During this season, she will also be a frequent guest at the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, among others, with whom she appears at the Bregenz Festival and Vienna´s Musikverein.

Jacquot will further conduct a total of four opera productions - in Strasbourg (world premiere of "Until the Lions" by Thierry Pécou), Nancy ("L’amour des trois oranges“), Berlin (Thomas’ "Hamlet") and Antwerp/Ghent ("Le nozze di Figaro").

From 2019 to 2022, she was first Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf / Duisburg where, in addition to performances in a broad repertoire, she conducted the new productions of "La Clemenza di Tito", "Roméo et Juliette" and "The Nutcracker", among others, as well as concerts by the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra and the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 2016, Marie Jacquot was assistant to Kirill Petrenko at the Bavarian State Opera for the world premiere of Miroslav Srnka's "South Pole" (directed by Hans Neuenfels), following which she was invited to conduct two world premieres at the 2018 Munich Opera Festival. Between 2016 and 2019 she was 1st Kapellmeister and Deputy General Music Director in Würzburg.

After studying trombone in Paris, Marie Jacquot studied conducting in Vienna and Weimar and attended various master classes; as of 2019, she was in the second sponsorship stage of the Conductors' Forum of the German Music Council. Her awards include the "Ernst Schuch Prize" in 2019, as well as a nomination as "Newcomer of the year" at the International Opera Awards.

Soprano Diana Damrau has been performing on the world’s leading opera and concert stages for two decades. Her vast repertoire spans both lyric soprano and coloratura roles including the title roles in »Lucia di Lammermoor« (La Scala, Bavarian State Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House), »Manon« (Vienna State Opera, Metropolitan Opera) and »La Traviata« (La Scala, Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Opéra national de Paris and Bavarian State Opera) as well as Königin der Nacht in »Die Zauberflöte« (Metropolitan Opera, Salzburg Festival, Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House).

Since her house debut as Zerbinetta in 2005, Diana Damrau has made seven major role debuts at the Metropolitan Opera and has appeared several times in live HD cinema broadcasts worldwide. Highlights included new productions of »Rigoletto« (Gilda), »Il barbiere di Siviglia« (Rosina), »Le comte Ory« (Adèle) and »Les pêcheurs des perles« (Leïla). Other engagements included the title roles in »La Sonnambula«, »La Fille du Régiment«, and »Roméo et Juliette«.

She was the first singer in Metropolitan Opera history to sing both Pamina and the Queen of the Night in different performances of the same

series of »Die Zauberflöte«.

The soprano can be seen on the opera stage time and again with contemporary repertoire. The title role in Iain Bell’s adaptation of Hogarth’s »A Harlot’s Progress« (Theater an der Wien 2013) and the two roles of Drunken Woman and Gym Instructress in Lorin Maazel’s opera »1984« (Royal Opera House 2005) were composed especially for her.

Diana Damrau is also one of the most important song interpreters of our time. She has a close artistic partnership with pianist Helmut Deutsch and harpist Xavier de Maistre.  

 As a Warner Classics/Erato exclusive artist, Diana Damrau made her debut album with Arie di Bravura, a collection of Mozart and Salieri arias. Further solo albums followed, receiving various awards, including the ECHO and the OPUS Klassik. Diana Damrau’s work is documented on various opera complete recordings and DVDs.

Diana Damrau is Kammersängerin of the Bavarian State Opera (2007), she was awarded the Bavarian Maximilian-Orden for Art and Science (2010) and the German Cross of Merit for Cultural and Social Merit (2021) – the hightest civil honour of the German Republic.

Mezzo-soprano Nicole Chirka was born in Kharkiv (Ukraine) and studied with Alexander Vostryakov at the National Academy of Music in Kyiv. Here, her roles included Laura (Iolanta), Maddalena (Rigoletto), Marcellina (Le nozze di Figaro), Olga (Eugene Onegin) and Lyubasha in excerpts from Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride.

Nicole made her debut at the Kyiv National Opera in 2020 with her role as Olga(Eugene Onegin). Since the start of the 2021/22 season she has been a member of the Young Opera Ensemble at the Semperoper Dresden, where her roles to date have included the Third Lady (Die Zauberflöte), Kate Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) and Kitchen Boy (Rusalka).

As a member of the Young Singers Project, in August 2022 Nicole made her debut at the Salzburger Festspiele with her performance of Glaša/A Woman (Káťa Kabanová).

Upcoming engagements for Nicole include her return to the Semperoper Dresden, appearing in Madama Butterfly, La Traviata, Die Zauberflöte, Die Gespenstersonate, La sonnambula and Pique Dame.

Der aus Luzern stammende Tenor Mauro Peter studierte Gesang an der Hochschule für Musik und Theater München bei Fenna Kügel-Seifried.

2012 gewann er den ersten Preis sowie den Publikumspreis beim Internationalen RobertSchumann-Wettbewerb in Zwickau. Als Liedsänger feierte er 2012 mit Schuberts „Die schöne Müllerin“, begleitet von Helmut Deutsch, sein von Publikum und Presse umjubeltes Debüt bei der Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg. Seither ist er ständiger Gast in Schwarzenberg und Hohenems und auf allen führenden internationalen Konzertpodien und Opernbühnen zu erleben.

Liederabende gibt Mauro Peter regelmäßig im KKL Luzern, an der Wigmore Hall in London, im Musikverein sowie Konzerthaus Wien, im Musikverein Graz, an den Konzerthäusern in Berlin und Dortmund, in der Kölner Philharmonie, im Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, an der Oper Frankfurt und am Opernhaus Zürich, außerdem im Teatro de la Zarzuela Madrid. Konzertengagements führten ihn in die Philharmonie im Gasteig München, in die Royal Festival Hall London, ins Mozarteum Salzburg und zum Festival in Verbier. Ebenfalls regelmäßiger Gast ist er beim Festival de Paques in Aix-en-Provence sowie seit 2012 bei den Salzburger Festspielen, wo er im Sommer 2018 die Rolle des „Tamino“ in der Eröffnungspremiere des Festivals übernehmen wird.

Zu den Dirigenten, mit denen Mauro Peter bislang

zusammengearbeitet hat, gehören Gustavo Dudamel, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Zubin Mehta, Teodor Currentzis, Fabio Luisi, Ivor Bolton, Iván Fischer, Vladimir Jurowski und James Gaffigan.

Seit der Spielzeit 2013/14 ist Mauro Peter Ensemblemitglied des Opernhauses Zürich. Darüber hinaus sang er an der Bayerischen Staatsoper München, an der Mailänder Scala, am Royal Opera House Covent Garden, an der Opéra National de Paris, an der Komischen Oper Berlin, im Theater an der Wien, an der Canadian Opera Toronto sowie an der Opera de Lyon.

Nach einem Live-Mitschnitt der „Schönen Müllerin“ aus der Wigmore Hall erschien 2015 seine Debüt-CD bei SONY Classical mit Goethe-Liedern von Schubert. Ein weiteres Album mit seiner Interpretation der „Dichterliebe“ sowie weiterer Schumann-Lieder wurde 2016 ebenfalls bei SONY Classical veröffentlicht.

Für die Spielzeit 2018/19 folgt Mauro Peter erneuten Einladungen an das Züricher Opernhaus und das Theater an der Wien. Liederabende sind u.a. im Konzerthaus in Wien, bei der Schubertiade, im Münchner Prinzregententheater und im Rahmen der Salzburger Mozartwoche geplant. Im Konzertbereich wird Mauro Peter u.a. in Calgary mit Trevor Pinnock sowie mit Riccardo Muti an der Mailänder Scala arbeiten.

The bass-baritone Martin-Jan Nijhof was born in Ravenstein in The Netherlands. He studied at the Conservatory of Music in Maastricht in the south of The Netherlands, where he received lessons by Barbara Schlick.

For his postgraduate studies he went to the University of Music in the German city of Freiburg. There he received further vocal education by Reginaldo Pinheiro. Currently Martin-Jan Nijhof prepares his opera roles with the famous vocalist bass Jaakko Ryhänen from Finland. Nijhof made his debut as Leporello in »Don Giovanni« at the Südostbayerische Städtetheater in Passau (Germany) in 2003. For this performance he was nominated as best junior artist in the operamagazine Opernwelt.

Since August 2016 Martin-Jan Nijhof has been a lead member of the cast at the Semperoper Dresden. In this opera house he sings roles such as Don Alfonso (»Così fan tutte«), Colline (»La Bohème«), Masetto (»Don Giovanni«), Publio (»La Clemenza di Tito«) and Angelotti (»Tosca«). 

As a guest vocalist he made some great performances all over Germany. Some recent appearances were as Don Giovanni n Mönchengladbach, Il Conte in Mainz and also Colline during the live-broadcast on German national television for the NDR-Klassik Open Air in Hannover conducted by Keri Lynn Wilson.

His large oratorio and classical song repertoire includes works of Bach, Rossini, Händel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Schubert and Vaughan Williams. One of the highlights was the performance of the »Kindertotenlieder« of Mahler with the Magdeburgische Philharmonie, conducted by Stefan Lano.