Symphony Concert N° 6

Since the 2012/2013 season Christian Thielemann has been Principal Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. Following engagements at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, in Gelsenkirchen, Karlsruhe, Hanover and Dusseldorf, in 1988 he moved to Nuremberg to occupy the post of Generalmusikdirektor. In 1997 he returned to his hometown of Berlin to direct the Deutsche Oper until 2004, when he became Music Director of the Munich Philharmonic, a post he held until 2011. In addition to his current position in Dresden, Thielemann was Artistic Director of the Salzburg Easter Festival from 2013 to 2022. In September 2023, Christian Thielemann was announced as Daniel Barenboim's designated successor. He will take up the position of General Music Director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden from the 2024/2025 season.

In previous seasons Christian Thielemann has contributed greatly to the birthday cele­brations for Wagner, Strauss and Beethoven. At the same time he has explored a wide range of music from Bach to Henze, Rihm and Gubaidulina in Dresden and on tour. In the Semperoper he recently conducted new pro­ductions of »Ariadne auf Naxos«, »Capriccio« and »Aida« while for the Salzburg Easter Festival he interpreted »Die Walküre«, »Tos­ca«, »Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg« and »Lohengrin«.

Christian Thielemann maintains close ties to the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, whose New Year’s Concert he conducted in 2019 and will conduct again in 2024. He was Musical Advisor and Music Director of the Bayreuth Festival, at which he has made his

mark with his interpretations every year since his debut in the summer of 2000. In addition, he has been invited to conduct the leading orchestras of Europe, the United States, Israel and Asia.

As a UNITEL exclusive artist, Christian Thielemann has a comprehensive catalogue of recordings. His most recent projects with the Staatskapelle have been to record the symphonies of Anton Bruckner and Robert Schumann, Arnold Schoenberg’s »Gurre- Lieder« as well as numerous operas.

Christian Thielemann is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London, honorary professor at Dresden’s Carl Maria von Weber College of Music and holds honorary doctorates from the »Franz Liszt« University of Music in Weimar and the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2003 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In May 2015 he received the Richard Wagner Prize from the Richard Wagner Society of the city of Leipzig, followed by the Prize of the Semperoper Trust in October 2016. In April 2022 he was awarded the Badge of Honor of the Province of Salzburg and in July 2022 he was awarded the Coat of Arms Medal in Gold of the City of Salzburg. 2023 he received honorary membership and the Ring of Honour of the Wiener Staatsoper. In April 2024, he was made an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic.

He is patron of the Richard-Wagner-Stätten in Graupa. His recordings have been showered with awards.

Limburg-born soprano Julia Kleiter studied with Prof. William Workmann in Hamburg and with Prof. Klesie Kelly-Moog in Cologne. In 2004, she made her debut at the Opéra-Bastille in Paris as Pamina - a role she performed in the following ten years in numerous productions in Madrid, Zurich, New York, Munich or at the Salzburg Festival under the musical direction of conductors such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Marc Minkowski, Claudio Abbado, Adam Fischer or most recently Philippe Jordan.

Most recently she sang Beethoven's 9th Symphony under Barenboim in Berlin, Dvořák's Stabat Mater in Munich, Dvořák's Requiem in Berlin or Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri in Frankfurt and Zurich. She performed Brahms' German Requiem in London. Haydn's Creation took Julia Kleiter to La Scala in Milan and Berlin. On tour with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under Christian Thielemann in May 22, she was the soprano in Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony, taking another step towards the great lyric repertoire.

The last few years have been affected by numerous cancellations due to Corona, so unfortunately role debuts as Arabella under Fabio Luisi at the Zurich Opera House or her debut as the Countess in Capriccio in Zurich could not take place. In the 2021/22 season Julia Kleiter shone in the world premiere of Manfred Trojahn's opera Eurydice - Die Liebenden blind at the Amsterdam Opera. In 2022/23 Julia Kleiter will make up for her role debut as Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier in Brussels and return to the Bavarian State Opera as Agathe and to the Semperoper in Dresden as Eva and Contessa.

Numerous CDs and DVDs document her artistic work, including her recording of songs by Franz Liszt and Julius Drake at the piano, which has been available on Hyperion since January 2020. In Christian Gerhaher's complete Schumann recording released by Sony, she takes on a weighty part, accompanied on the piano by Gerold Huber.

Markus Eiche was born in St. Georgen in Germany, he studied in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart and began his career at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, where he developed the most important roles in his repertoire, including Marcello in La Bohème, Conte Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte, Wolfram in Tannhäuser as well as the title roles in Don Giovanni and Wozzeck.

The internationally demanded singer was bound with residency contracts for many years to both the Vienna State Opera and the Bavarian State Opera, where he sang such roles as Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde, Besenbinder in Hänsel

und Gretel, Harlekin and Music Teacher in Ariadne auf Naxos, Olivier and Count in Capriccio, the title role in Eugene Onegin, Yeletsky in Pique Dame, Fritz and Frank in Die tote Stadt, Gunther in Götterdämmerung, Valentin in Faust, Faninal in Der Rosenkavalier, Lescaut in Manon and Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Markus Eiche first took the challenge of teaching at the Zurich University of the Arts in 2012, and since 2016 he is professor for singing at the Freiburg University of Music.

Had it not been for Carl Maria von Weber, Dresden’s opera chorus would not have been founded, or at least not on October 8, 1817. It was Weber who obtained royal approval for this initiative; after all, it was his artistic mission (and personal ambition) to establish a German opera company alongside the tradition-steeped Italian opera. Besides suggesting other reforms for the staging of opera, he argued that it was now essential to have a regular choir. The choir started to participate in the traditional Palm Sunday concerts as early as 1827. Major landmarks in its history include the performances in 1846, 1847 and 1849 of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony under the later Kapellmeister Richard Wagner, who was forced to flee Dresden shortly after the last-mentioned performance.

Currently comprising 89 singers, the Dresden State Opera Chorus has now become one of Europe’s finest opera choruses and has been acclaimed as such in virtually every premiere review in recent years. This preservation of tradition, coupled with a growing awareness of quality, is indebted to such artists as Joseph Metzner, Wilhelm Fischer, Karl Maria Pembaur, Ernst Hintze, Gerhart Wüstner, Franz Peter Müller-Sybel, Hans-Dieter Pflüger, Matthias Brauer and Pablo Assante, who have led the choir through difficult times to the present day. The Dresden State Opera Chorus is currently directed by Jörn Hinnerk Andresen, who since assuming his post in 2014 has maintained and developed such qualities as tonal coherence, refinement and reliably consistent precision.

The State Opera Chorus of today has to a significant degree been shaped by its collaboration with the conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli, who died far too early and dedicated much time and effort to developing the choir’s artistic potential. Nowadays, the choir frequently demonstrates its qualities in operatic productions and concert performances. Radio, television and CD recordings bear further testimony to the immense prowess on account of which the State Opera Chorus is much sought after in many places besides Dresden: the choir receives invitations to perform at festivals, on tours and in concerts and has since 2013 worked together with the Staatskapelle Dresden at the Salzburg Easter Festival, which has been directed by Christian Thielemann ever since. October 8, 2017 marks the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Dresden State Opera Chorus.