Antonello Manacorda conducts Schumann, Barber & Ives

An Italian with a strong affinity for the German repertoire. A “melodist by nature” (Der Tagesspiegel), who knows how to convincingly transfer the attention to detail of stylistically informed interpretation practice to the large apparatus. A true orchestral practitioner, moreover, whose artistic creative power is combined with the need for a musical style based on partnership. Antonello Manacorda’s versatility as a conductor lies in the wealth of his musical and cultural influences: Born in Turin into an Italian-French family, educated in Amsterdam and at home in Berlin for many years, Manacorda was a founding member and long-time concertmaster of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, founded by Claudio Abbado, before studying conducting with the legendary Finnish teacher Jorma Panula. Today, Antonello Manacorda can be heard just as frequently in opera productions at the world’s most important opera houses as he can on the podium of leading symphony orchestras. His work centres on the Kammerakademie Potsdam, which he has been Artistic Director of since 2010 and with which he has made a number of award-winning recordings. Antonello Manacorda will retire as Chief Conductor of the ensemble at the end of the 2024/25 season, although he will remain associated with it as Honorary Conductor. Opera productions will take Antonello Manacorda to the Stuttgart State Opera (Il trovatore), the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), the Zurich Opera (Nozze di Figaro) and the Opéra National de Paris (Pelléas et Mélisande) in the current and upcoming seasons.

In the field of symphonic music, Antonello Manacorda will be a guest conductor with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the 2024/2025 season. Together with the Kammerakademie Potsdam, he will perform a concert version of Weber’s Freischütz in Potsdam, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and the Berlin Philharmonie.

Maria Bengtsson begins the 2024/25 season as Christine in the new production of Intermezzo at the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden. Following her extraordinary success last season, she can also be heard in this role in the revival of the opera at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. The Vienna State Opera presents the artist as Donna Anna in the Don Giovanni guest performance at the Opéra de Monaco. Maria Bengtsson returns to the Frankfurt Opera in her signature role of the Rosenkavalier-Marschallin and makes a guest appearance as Nozze-Contessa at Münchner Opernfestspiele. Concert engagements take the soprano to the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin with Barber’s Knoxville, to Malmö and Hamburg with Strauss’ Four Last Songs, both under the baton of Bertrand de Billy, to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Simone Young with Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony and to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra with Mahler’s Symphony No. 2.

Highlights of recent seasons include Daphne at the Frankfurt Opera, Marschallin (Rosenkavalier) at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and at the Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam, Contessa (Nozze di Figaro), Marschallin (Rosenkavalier) and Gräfin (Capriccio) at the Vienna State Opera, Contessa at the Opéra de Paris and the Staatsoper Berlin, Donna Anna at Covent Garden London, Blanche in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites at the Frankfurt Opera, Ellen Orford (Peter Grimes) at the Opéra de Paris, Covent Garden and the Teatro Real Madrid, Rusalka and Clara in the world premiere of Christian Jost’s Egmont at the Theater an der Wien, Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte) at the Hamburg State Opera and at the Teatro San Carlo Naples under the direction of Riccardo Muti, Pamina (Zauberflöte) at the Berlin State Opera, the soprano in Calixto Bieito’s staged version of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at the Hamburg State Opera as well as in his staged interpretation of Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the Theater an der Wien and the title role in the world premiere of Detlev Glanert’s opera Oceane at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

As a concert singer and lied interpreter, the Swedish singer has performed at the Carinthian Summer, the Berlin Festival, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Vienna Musikverein, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Brucknerhaus Linz, the Klangbogen Festival Vienna, the Gulbenkian Foundation Lisbon, the Teatro Nacional Sao Carlos Lisbon and the Alte Oper in Frankfurt as well as the Frankfurt Opera. Recent concerts took her to Gothenburg with Berg’s 7 Early Songs under Simone Young, to Potsdam with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony under Antonello Manacorda, and to Antwerp for a New Year’s Concert. Maria Bengtsson has also performed with the BR Symphony Orchestra under Kirill Petrenko in Mendelssohn’s Elias, with the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo under Simone Young in Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9, in Antwerp with the Vier letzte Lieder under Bertrand de Billy, at the Konzerthaus Berlin, with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Kirill Petrenko in Tel Aviv as well as with the Hamburg Philharmonic under Bertrand de Billy and on the occasion of the opening of the Elbphilharmonie under Thomas Hengelbrock with Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang.

Maria Bengtsson studied at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg. From 2000 to 2002 she was a member of the ensemble at the Volksoper in Vienna, and from 2002 to 2007 she was a member of the ensemble at the Komische Oper in Berlin, where she appeared in the leading roles under Kirill Petrenko in many of his most important productions. Since 2007 the artist has been freelancing.

Since that time Maria Bengtsson has appeared, among others. at the Opéra de Paris, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, La Scala in Milan, the Bolshoi in Moscow, the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg and Aix en Provence Festivals, as well as the Frankfurt Opera, the Opéra National de Bordeaux, the Cologne Opera, the Opéra National de Lyon, the Teatro la Fenice, the Antwerp Opera and the Theater an der Wien.