The radioeins storytelling concert – “The Magic Mountain”

“Tchaikovsky has never been more modern, and conductor Valentin Uryupin lives this out consistently and rather stunningly.” Süddeutsche Zeitung

Valentin Uryupin feels equally at home as a conductor in the symphonic and operatic repertoire. In both areas, he has built up close artistic partnerships with orchestras and houses in recent years. In addition to debuts, he has several invitations to return to the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, Frankfurt Opera, Teatro Regio Torino, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, and the New National Theatre Tokyo, where he will conduct Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. He makes his first guest appearance, also with Eugene Onegin, at the Hanover State Opera as well as with Carmen at the Berlin State Opera and with Verdi’s Nabucco at the Nuremberg Theatre; he also makes his debut with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a guest conductor he has also worked with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Tapiola Sinfonietta, SWR Symphonieorchester, Orchestra della Toscana, Orchestra Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and Danish
National Symphony Orchestra. As an opera conductor, he has led highly acclaimed productions at the Stuttgart State Opera (The Love for Tree Oranges) and at the Bregenz Festival (Eugene Onegin, 2021 and Siberia, 2022). He has also been a guest at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl on several occasions. He has worked with soloists such as Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Lars Vogt, Thomas Hampson, Bryn Terfel, Barbara Hannigan, Pepe Romero, Asmik Grigoryan, Vadim Gluzman, Vadim Repin, Juri
Baschmet, Denis Matsuev, Nikolai Luganski, Sergei Khachatryan, and Marc-André Hamelin. Valentin Uryupin’s repertoire covers all periods from Joseph Haydn and Jan Dimas Zelenka to Thomas Adès, Jorg Widmann, and Kaija Saariaho.

In autumn 2021 Valentin Uryupin became chief conductor and artistic director of the Novaya Opera in Moscow. There he presented two major productions with Korngold’s Die tote Stadt and Massenet’s Cendrillon before resigning his post at the house. As artistic director of the Rostov Symphony Orchestra from 2015 to 2021, Valentin Uryupin developed the orchestra into one of Russia’s most renowned ensembles. In Russia, Valentin Uryupin has also made regular guest appearances with
major orchestras, including the State Academic Symphony Orchestra “Evgeny Svetlanov”, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra and the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra, which he conducted most recently at the Lucerne Festival in 2021. For several years he worked closely with the MusicAeterna Orchestra at the Perm Opera.

Valentin Uryupin was born in Losova, Ukraine, in 1985. Before he celebrated successes on the conductor’s podium, he won more than 20 international competitions as a clarinettist and gave concerts worldwide. The winner of the 8th Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition (2017) completed both his studies – clarinet and conducting – at the Moscow State Conservatory. His teachers include Gennadi Roschdestwenski and the clarinettist Evgeny Petrov; he also assisted Valery Gergiev, Teodor Currentzis, and Vladimir Jurowski, and he received significant inspiration from Kurt Masur in the latter’s last master class. In view of his numerous conducting engagements, his soloist career has now taken a back seat; however, he can occasionally be heard in play-conduct concerts in both roles, as conductor and clarinettist, in addition to being an enthusiastic chamber musician.

The actress and publisher Meike Rötzer, born in Bünde in 1971, completed her acting training at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich. She made her debut at the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe in 1996 and performed at the Städtische Bühnen Kiel from 2000.
Further freelance productions followed, including at the Berlin theatre Berliner Sophiensæle. Her debut in front of the camera began directly on the big screen in cinema films such as ‘Einer meiner ältesten Freunde’ (1994) and ‘Ab nach Tibet! Meike Rötzer has been recording for radio plays and audio books since 2007, such as ‘Wir müssen die Liebe neu erfinden’ (2023) by Mona Chollet or ‘Eva’ (2023) by Verena Keßler.
For her work on Katja Petrowskaja’s ‘Vielleicht Esther’, she was nominated for the German Audiobook Award for Best Interpreter in 2023. In the podcast ‘NATURerKUNDEN’, which she produced, she has been discussing the topics of nature and animals with changing dialogue partners since 2021.
From 2008 to 2022, she worked as an editor for fiction at the publishing house Matthes & Seitz Berlin.
Rötzer founded Erzählbuchverlag in 2022, through which she publishes audiobooks. The dramas and novels of world literature are condensed and told in contemporary language. She performs with the narrative solos at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, Literaturhaus Frankfurt, among others, and radioeins has been broadcasting the narrative lounge “Richtig gutes Zeug!”, which she co-founded, since 2022.

Photo © Nik Konietzny