Staatskapelle Dresden

Founded by Prince Elector Moritz von Sachsen in 1548, the Staatskapelle Dresden is one of the oldest orchestras in the world and steeped in tradition. Over its long history many distinguished conductors and internationally celebrated instrumentalists have left their mark on this onetime court orchestra. Previous directors include Heinrich Schütz, Johann Adolf Hasse, Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner, who called the ensemble his »miraculous harp«. The list of prominent conductors of the last 100 years includes Ernst von Schuch, Fritz Reiner, Fritz Busch, Karl Böhm, Joseph Keilberth, Rudolf Kempe, Otmar Suitner, Kurt Sanderling, Herbert Blomstedt and Giuseppe Sinopoli. The orchestra was directed by Bernard Haitink from 2002-2004 and most recently by Fabio Luisi from 2007-2010. Principal Conductor since the 2012 / 2013 season has been Christian Thielemann. In May 2016 the former Principal Conductor Herbert Blomstedt received the title Conductor Laureate. The only person to previously hold this title was Sir Colin Davis before, from 1990 until his death in April 2013. Myung-Whun Chung has been Principal Guest Conductor since the 2012 / 2013 season.

Richard Strauss and the Staatskapelle were closely linked for more than sixty years. Nine of the composer’s operas were premiered in Dresden, including »Salome«, »Elektra« and »Der Rosenkavalier«, while Strauss’s »Alpine Symphony« was dedicated to the orchestra. Countless other famous composers have written works either dedicated to the orchestra or first performed in Dresden. In 2007 the Staatskapelle reaffirmed this tradition by introducing the annual position of Composer-in-Residence. Following on from Hans Werner Henze, Sofia Gubaidulina, Wolfgang Rihm, György Kurtág, Arvo Pärt, Peter Eötvös, Aribert Reimann, posthumously Giuseppe Sinopoli, Matthias Pintscher and Olga Neuwirth, Georg Friedrich Haas holds this title for the 2023/2024 season.
The Staatskapelle’s home is the Semperoper, where it performs around 250 operas and ballets each season. In addition, the ensemble presents another 50 symphonic and chamber concerts in the opera house, as well as playing at various musical events in Dresden. As one of the most celebrated and popular symphony orchestras, the Staatskapelle regularly travels abroad to the world’s leading classical venues. For ten years, from 2013 to 2022, the Staatskapelle has been the resident orchestra of the Salzburg Easter Festival.

As partner orchestra of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, the Staatskapelle supports the nurturing of young talent. Also active at the local level, the Kapelle is a partner of Meetingpoint Music Messiaen in the double city of Görlitz-Zgorzelec and, in 2010, helped found the International Shostakovich Festival in Gohrisch (Saxon Switzerland), which is the first annual event dedicated to the music and life of the composer Dmitri Shostakovich.At a ceremony in Brussels in 2007 the Staatskapelle became the first – and so far only – orchestra to be awarded the »European Prize for the Preservation of the World’s Musical Heritage«. During the 2022 Salzburg Easter Festival, the Staatskapelle was awarded the Herbert-von-Karajan-Prize.

DANIELE GATTI

Daniele Gatti graduated as a composer and orchestra conductor at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan. He is Music Director of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and he holds the same position at the Orchestra Mozart. He is also Artistic Advisor of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO). Starting from March 2022 he will be the Chief Conductor of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. He was Chief Conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (RCO) in Amsterdam and he previously held prestigious roles at important musical institutions like the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Royal Opera House of London, the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and Zurich’s Opernhaus. The Berliner Philharmoniker, the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala are just a few of the renowned symphonic institutions he works with. Some of the numerous and important new productions he has conducted include the Falstaff staged by Robert Carsen (in London, Milan, and Amsterdam); the Parsifal staged by Stefan Herheim opening the 2008 Bayreuther Festspiele (one of the very few Italian conductors to have been invited to the Wagnerian festival); the Parsifal staged by François Girard at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; four operas at the Salzburger Festspiele (Elektra, La bohème, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Il Trovatore). To celebrate Verdi’s anniversary, in 2013 he conducted La Traviata at the season opening of the Teatro alla Scala, where he also opened the 2008 season with Don Carlo, and performed other titles including Lohengrin, Lulu, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Falstaff, and Wozzeck. More recent engagements include Pelléas et Mélisande at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Tristan und Isolde at the Théâtre des ChampsÉlysées in Paris, and the 2016/2017 opening of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma where he conducted the same Wagnerian opera.

The year 2016 saw the beginning of a three-year concert cycle named “RCO meets Europe”, that involved 28 member states of the European Union and it included the project “Side by Side”, a project allowing musicians from local youth orchestras to perform the first musical number of the program next to the members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Maestro Gatti, thus fostering an incredibly fruitful human and musical exchange. The Italian appointment took place in Turin at the Auditorium of the Lingotto building. In June 2017 he conducted the RCO in an opera production: Salome at the Nationale Opera of Amsterdam. The 2017/2018 Season saw him conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Philharmonie Berlin, the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan interpreting Mahler’s Second Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Europe, South Korea, Japan, and at the Carnegie Hall in New York, all being side events to Amsterdam’s traditional season. Other engagements included the opening of the new season of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma with La Damnation de Faust, a tour with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and several more performances with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich, and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. At the end of 2018 he conducted Rigoletto for the season opening of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. His 2019 appointments were: concerts on the podium of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, and the opening of the new season of the Opera di Roma conducting Les Vêpres Siciliennes. Among the 2020 engagements: I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Opera di Roma,concerts with theOrchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro di San Carlo di Napoli, the Orchestre National de France, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and the Orchestra Mozart at the Ravello Festival. Roman appointments with the Teatro dell’Opera include the concert at the Quirinale Gardens broadcasted live on Rai1, the new productions of Rigoletto at the Circo Massimo, and of Zaide and Il barbiere di Siviglia (season opening) at the Teatro Costanzi, and concerts in live streaming. In 2021 Daniele Gatti returns on the podium of the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Berlin Philharmonie and of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome; he conducts new productions of La traviata at the Costanzi in Rome (broadcasted on Rai3) and of Il trovatore at the Circo Massimo, and concerts leading the Orchestra dell’Opera di Roma at the MAXXI Museum and at the Galleria Borghese, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Rai Orchestra, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, the Dresdner Festspielorchester, and the MünchnerPhilharmoniker. He also conducts Verdi’s Requiem at the Palau de Les Arts in Valencia; in September and October he returns on the podium of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia on tour, the Orchestra Mozart in Florence, Bologna and Lugano, the Orchestra Rai at the Verdi’s Festival in Parma, and of the Staatskapelle Dresden in Salzburg. He conducts Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, where in November he opens the 2021/22 season conducting the world premiere of Battistelli’s Julius Caesar. Afterwards, he will be back on the podium of the Rai Orchestra in Turin and the Orchestra Mozart in Rome. In 2022 he will be leading the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Symphonieorchester des BayerischenRundfunks, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Staatskapelle Berlin at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and at the Berlin Philharmonie. Daniele Gatti was awarded the Premio “Franco Abbiati” from Italian music critics as best conductor in 2015, and in 2016 he was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur from the French Republic for his work as Music Director of the Orchestre National de France.

Under Sony Classical he has recorded works by Debussy and Stravinsky with the Orchestre National de France, and a DVD of Wagner’s Parsifal staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Under the label RCO Live he has recorded Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, Mahler’s First, Second and Fourth Symphonies, a DVD of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps together with Debussy’s Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un Faune and La Mer, a DVD of Strauss’s Salome performedat the Dutch National Opera, a CD of Bruckner’s Symphony n. 9 together with the Prelude and the Karfreitagszauber (Good Friday Music) from Wagner’s Parsifal. In November 2019 a DVD of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, staged at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma,was released by C Major.