Philippe Jordan
About
Coming from an artistic Swiss family, Philippe Jordan’s career has taken him to all the world’s major opera houses, festivals, and orchestras, and he is regarded as one of the most established and important conductors of our time.
He has been music director of the Wiener Staatsoper since September 2020. Under his leadership, the "Haus am Ring" has presented new productions of Madama Butterfly, Parsifal, Macbeth, Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Tristan und Isolde, and Salome. In the 2023-24 season, he led the new production of Il Trittico and will complete the Da Ponte cycle with Così fan tutte.
Also in the 2023-24 season, Jordan conducted a Ring Cycle at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. His symphonic engagements included the Wiener Philharmoniker, Staatskapelle Berlin, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, and Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI.
Jordan’s career on the podium began as Kapellmeister at Germany’s Stadttheater Ulm and at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. From 2001 to 2004, he was principal conductor of the Graz Opera and the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra, during which he also debuted at several of the world’s leading opera houses and festivals, including New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, Teatro alla Scala, Bayerische Staatsoper, Wiener Staatsoper, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, and the festivals of Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne, and Salzburg. From 2006 to 2010, he returned to the Berlin State Opera as principal guest conductor. In the summer of 2012, he debuted at the Bayreuth Festival with Parsifal, returning again in 2017 with Bayreuth’s new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which he also conducted in subsequent years.
Jordan was musical director of the Opéra national de Paris between 2009 and 2021, where he conducted numerous premieres and revivals, including Moses und Aron, La Damnation de Faust, Der Rosenkavalier, Samson et Dalila, Lohengrin, Don Carlos in its original French version, Les Troyens, Don Giovanni, a new production of Borodin’s Prince Igor, and Wagner's Ring Cycle in a concert version.
From 2014 to 2020, Jordan served as principal conductor of the Wiener Symphoniker. Highlights of his tenure with the orchestra include complete cycles of Schubert’s symphonies and Beethoven’s symphonies and piano concerti, a cycle of J.S. Bach’s major masses and oratorios, and a contrast-filled dialogue with Bruckner's last three symphonies and modern classics by Kurtág, Ligeti, and Scelsi.
As a symphonic conductor, Jordan has worked with the world’s most famous orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics, Concertgebouworkest, Münchner Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Seattle, St. Louis, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Washington, Minnesota, Montreal, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.
