Creative Team
Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe
Justin Brown
Music Director
Internationally acclaimed in both the symphonic and operatic repertoire, Justin Brown is General Music Director of the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Germany, and Music Director Laureate of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra in the United States.
In the 2015-2016 season at the Badisches Staatstheater, Brown will conduct a new production of Tristan und Isolde (directed by Christopher Alden) and the first part of the new Karlsruhe Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, directed by David Hermann. Brown also revives the highly acclaimed productions of Parsifal and Falstaff. As a guest conductor, Brown will make his debut with the Welsh National Opera conducting the world premiere of Elena Langer’s Figaro Gets a Divorce, directed by David Pountney, who also wrote the libretto. Further guest engagements will include debuts with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra in Canada, and Orquestra Filarmônica de Minas Gerais in Brazil.
In six seasons as Music Director of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Brown and the ASO received three first-place ASCAP awards in 2010, 2012, and 2013, and the John S. Edwards Award for Strongest Commitment to New American Music in 2011. In addition to commissioning eleven new works from eight composers, Brown conducted major works by many distinguished contemporary composers such as Elliott Carter, George Crumb, John Adams, Peter Lieberson and Steve Reich. The Alabama Symphony’s artistic growth also led to Brown’s triumphant and “long overdue” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker) debut with the orchestra at Carnegie Hall in May, 2012, as part of the second annual Spring For Music Festival. His legacy includes the institution of a composer-in-residence program as well as the founding of the Alabama Symphony Youth Orchestra.
As guest conductor, Justin Brown has worked with many of the world’s top orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic and City of Birmingham Symphony; the Oslo Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic and Swedish Chamber Orchestra; the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Netherlands Radio Symphony, and Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse; the Cincinnati, Colorado, Indianapolis, Dallas Symphonies, and the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra of San Diego; the Malaysian Philharmonic, São Paulo Symphony, Sydney Symphony and the Tokyo Philharmonic.
Since beginning his opera career at the English National Opera and Scottish Opera, Mr. Brown has conducted at Covent Garden, Santa Fé, La Monnaie, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Oper Frankfurt, Opéra de Nantes, Opéra de Strasbourg, Teatro San Carlo/Lisbon, and the Norwegian Opera. In December 2010, he made his Bavarian State Opera (Munich) debut with L’Elisir d’amore. Since becoming music director of the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe in 2008, Justin Brown has been recognized for his expansion of the orchestra’s repertoire through a range of diverse programming. Under Brown’s leadership, the Staatstheater received the 2012 German Publisher’s Award for innovative programming and commitment to contemporary music. In Opernwelt‘s 2012 year-in-review issue of the finest opera performances in Germany, music critics Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich and Georg-Fredrich Kühn cited Justin Brown for “conductor of the year” in productions of Les Troyens by Berlioz and A Village Romeo and Juliet by Delius. During the last two seasons, Justin Brown’s interpretations of Parsifal, Falstaff, Die Meistersinger and Krása’s Verbolung im Traum have all received rave reviews in the European press.
Justin Brown’s discography includes the 2013 release of Paul Lansky’s Arches on Bridge Records, a 2012 release of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony with the Badische Staatskapelle Karlsruhe on the Pan Classics label, praised by Christian Merlin in Diapason Magazine as “an exemplary account of the intimidating Ninth”. Brown was also recognized with a 2007 Grammy nomination for Best Classical Recording for Peter Lieberson’s The Six Realms (Bridge Records, 2006, also the winner of a 2006 WQXR Gramophone American Award), and an Editor’s Choice from Gramophone Magazine for Gershwin’s complete music for Piano and Orchestra with Anne-Marie McDermott and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (Bridge Records, 2008). Other recordings for Bridge have included works by Carter, Ruders, Gershwin, Dvořák, and Paul Lansky. Brown also conducted a critically acclaimed recording of the Elgar and Barber cello concertos with Anne Gastinel and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra on the French label, NAÏVE.
Born in England, Justin Brown studied at Cambridge University and at Tanglewood with Seiji Ozawa and Leonard Bernstein. He later served as an assistant to both Bernstein and Luciano Berio. He made his highly acclaimed conducting debut with the British stage première of Bernstein’s Mass. Also in demand as a pianist, Mr. Brown’s performances have been lauded on both sides of the Atlantic. He has played and directed concertos by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich, and performs regularly in chamber music series both in the United States and Germany.
Keith Warner
Director
English director Keith Warner made his Royal Opera debut in 2002 with Wozzeck(winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production) and has since directed Der Ring des Nibelungen for The Royal Opera, Peter Pan for Welsh National Opera at the Royal Opera House and on tour and Rossi’s Orpheusfor The Royal Opera and the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe. In the 2016/17 Season he returns to direct Otello for The Royal Opera, and WNO performs his production of The Merchant of Venice.
Warner grew up in London and studied English and Drama at Bristol University. In 1981 he joined English National Opera and was Associate Director there 1984–9. He has also been Associate Director of Scottish Opera, Artistic Director of Opera Omaha and Artistic Director of the Royal Danish Opera. He is currently Director of Theatre Studies for the National Opera Studio. Warner has directed more than a hundred and fifty operas in 20 countries, as well as plays and musicals, and has written the librettos to three operas by David Blake. He has directed two Ring cycles (The Royal Opera and Tokyo) and has directed Lohengin for the Bayreuth Festival. He has directed the world premieres of a new version of Penderecki’s The Devils of Loudon (Copenhagen), Hans Gefor’s Notorious(Göteborg) and André Tchaikovsky’s The Merchant of Venice (Bregenz Festival). Awards include the Austrian Music Theatre Prize for Mathis der Maler (Theater an der Wien).
Outreach work plays an important part in Warner’s career. He helped to set up the outreach wing of ENO and in 2006 was involved in a major production with Streetwise Opera, involving homeless people in the Newcastle area.
Tilo Steffens
Staging
The following is placeholder text known as “lorem ipsum,” which is scrambled Latin used by designers to mimic real copy. Mauris id fermentum nulla. Aenean eu justo sed elit dignissim aliquam.