Christian Thielemann |

Christian Thielemann

Born in Berlin, Christian Thielemann started working with small bands all over Germany from a young age. Today, after twenty years of work on small stages, Christian Thielemann collaborates with selected orchestras and a few opera houses. Among the ensembles with which he works are the orchestras of the Vienna, Berlin and London Philharmonic, the orchestra of the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and some others.

Christian Thielemann also works at major theaters such as the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Chicago Lyric Opera and the Vienna State Opera. On the stage of the last of the theaters, the conductor directed a new production of Tristan and Isolde (2003) and a revival of the opera Parsifal (2005). Christian Thielemann’s operatic repertoire ranges from Mozart to Schoenberg and Henze.

Between 1997 and 2004, Christian Thielemann was Music Director of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Not least thanks to his Berlin productions of Wagner operas and performances of works by Richard Strauss, Thielemann is considered one of the most sought-after conductors in the world. In 2000, Christian Thielemann made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival with the opera Die Meistersinger Nürnberg. Since then, his name has been constantly appearing in the posters of the festival. In 2001, at the Bayreuth Festival, under his direction, the opera Parsifal was performed, in 2002 and 2005. – opera “Tannhäuser”; and since 2006 he has been conducting a production of Der Ring des Nibelungen, which has received equally enthusiastic reception from the public and critics.

In 2000, Christian Thielemann began to collaborate with the Vienna Philharmonic. In September 2002 he conducted the orchestra at the Musikverein, followed by tours in London, Paris and Japan. In the summer of 2005, the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Maestro Thielemann, opened the Salzburg Festival. In November 2005, Christian Thielemann took part in a gala concert dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Vienna State Opera after World War II.

Christian Thielemann has recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra all of Schumann’s symphonies and Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 5 and 7 for Deutsche Grammophon. In February 2005, a disc was released with Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 5, which was recorded at a concert in honor of the entry of Christian Thielemann to the position of music director of the Munich Philharmonic. On October 20, 2005, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Maestro Thielemann gave a concert in honor of Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican. This concert aroused great interest in the press and was recorded on CD and DVD.

Christian Thielemann was Music Director of the Munich Philharmonic from 2004 to 2011. Since September 2012, the conductor has headed the Dresden (Saxon) State Chapel.