Love and the Sea

Edward Gardner is Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director of The Norwegian Opera and Ballet. He additionally serves as Honorary Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, following his tenure as Chief Conductor from 2015 to 2024.
Edward opens his inaugural season as Music Director of The Norwegian Opera and Ballet with concert performances of Wagner The Flying Dutchman and Mahler Symphony No. 2 ‘Resurrection’. He will then conduct two fully staged operas; Verdi La Traviata and Janáček The Cunning Little Vixen, following earlier productions of Bartok Bluebeard’s Castle, Zemlinsky A Florentine Tragedy and Verdi Un ballo in Maschera.

During his fourth season with the LPO, Edward will conduct nine concerts at the Royal Festival Hall as well as a US tour culminating at Carnegie Hall, and in major European cities including Vienna, Frankfurt and Hamburg. Highlights of their London season include Strauss Alpine Symphony, Ravel and Rachmaninov double bills and several world premieres, closing with Mahler Symphony No.8 Symphony of a Thousand.

In demand as a guest conductor, this season Edward appears with Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Frankfurt Radio, Dallas Symphony, New World Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony and West Australian Symphony Orchestras. Debuts in recent seasons include New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, San Francisco Symphony, Staatskapelle Berlin Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, and Wiener Symphoniker; with re-invitations to Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Montreal Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano. In the UK he has had longstanding collaborations with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he was Principal Guest Conductor from 2010-16, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, whom he has conducted at both the First and Last Night of the BBC Proms.

In Spring 2025 Edward returned to the Royal Opera House to conduct the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage Festen having made his debut with a new production of Káťa Kabanová, and he returned to Bayerische Staatsoper in June for Rusalka, following his debut with Peter Grimes in 2022 and Verdi Otello in 2023. Music Director of English National Opera for eight years (2007-15), Edward also built a strong relationship with The Metropolitan Opera with productions of Damnation of Faust, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Der Rosenkavalier and Werther. Elsewhere, he has conducted at La Scala, Chicago Lyric Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Opéra National de Paris.

Edward has an extensive discography with Chandos. His many recordings with the Bergen Philharmonic feature Brahms, Sibelius, Nielsen, Grieg, Bartok, Schoenberg and Britten, and their recording of Janáček Glagolitic Mass received a Grammy nomination. His recording of Tippett The Midsummer Marriage for LPO Live received the Gramophone Opera Award 2023 and their most recent release is Berlioz The Damnation of Faust.
A passionate supporter of young talent, Edward founded the Hallé Youth Orchestra in 2002 and regularly conducts the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He has a close relationship with the Juilliard School of Music, and with the Royal Academy of Music who appointed him their inaugural Sir Charles Mackerras Conducting Chair in 2014.

Born in Gloucester in 1974, Edward was educated at Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music and gained early recognition as Assistant Conductor of The Hallé and Music Director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera. His many accolades include the Royal Philharmonic Society Conductor of the Year Award (2008), an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera (2009) and an OBE for Services to Music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours (2012).

Considered one of the leading mezzos of her generation, French mezzo soprano Clémentine Margaine has gained international acclaim in recent seasons at such theaters as the Paris Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Metropolitan Opera, Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Opera Australia, and Canadian Opera Company. In the 2018/19 season, Margaine will debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as the title role in Carmen, which she will also sing at the Metropolitan Opera and for her debuts at the Vienna State Opera and Hamburg State Opera. She will appear with the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse as Marguerite in La Damnation de Faust, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Dulcinee in Massenet’s Don Quichotte, and at the Salzburg Festival for her first performances of the Sphinx in Oedipe. On the concert platform, Margaine will appear as the mezzo soloist in Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky with the Saint Louis Symphony.

In the 2017/18 season, Margaine made several significant debuts: her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Chicago and on tour with Riccardo Muti singing Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer, her debut as Fides in Meyerbeer’s Le Prophete at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, her debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona as Léonor in La Favorite, and her debut at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse as the title role in a new production of Carmen. She also sang Léonor at the Opéra Municipal de Marseille and Bavarian State Opera and returned to the Paris Opera as Concepcion in L’Heure Espagnole and to the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Carmen. Margaine began the season singing Marguerite in a concert performance of La Damnation de Faust in Bucharest.

In the 2016/17 season, Margaine made her debuts at the Metropolitan Opera and Paris Opera as Carmen. She also debuted at the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Dulcinee in Don Quichotte. Other engagements from the season included Margaine’s debut at the Cologne Opera as Concepcion in a new production of L’Heure Espagnole and her debut at Semperoper Dresden in Carmen. The mezzo began the 2015/16 season with her debut at the Washington National Opera as Carmen, subsequently performing the same role for her debuts at the Canadian Opera Company and Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. She also made her debut at the Musikverein in Vienna in Mendelssohn’s Elijah with the Orchestre National de France, under the baton of Daniele Gatti. In June of 2016, Margaine made her Australian Opera debut as Carmen, and in July of 2016 she debuted with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra in Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette, under Stéphane Denève. In August of the same year, Margaine gave a triumphant performance as Rebecca in Il Templario for her debut at the Salzburg Festival.

Shortly after graduating from the Paris Conservatory, Margaine was named the “révélation classique” and awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Concours International de Marmande. She subsequently joined the ensemble of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she sang her first performances of Carmen, a role for which she has now become internationally known and since sung at most of the world’s major theaters.