Emmanuel Villaume (born 1964, Strasbourg, France) is an internationally recognized orchestra conductor. He is Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and Chief Conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in Bratislava.
Contents |
Emmanuel Villaume began his musical education at the Strasbourg Conservatory and continued his studies in Paris (Khâgne and the Sorbonne where he studied literature, philosophy and musicology). At the age of 21, he was named Stage Manager at the Opéra National du Rhin, where he met Spiros Argiris (then music director of the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto) with whom he subsequently studied conducting. Early in his career, he was also a regular assistant to Seiji Ozawa. His American debut came in 1990 with Le nozze di Figaro at the Spoleto Festival USA with Renée Fleming as the Countess.
He was the Spoleto Festival USA's Music Director for Opera & Orchestra from 2001 to 2010. He has led numerous symphonic concerts and opera performances for the Festival, including a noted Mahler symphonies cycle, the American première of Henze's Der Prinz von Homburg, and well-received productions of Manon Lescaut, Der fliegende Holländer, Lakmé, Ariadne auf Naxos, Don Giovanni, and Louise.
Villaume made his conducting debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera in September 2004 in Madama Butterfly and returned there in 2006 for Samson et Dalila, and in February 2008 for Carmen. A frequent conductor at the Washington National Opera, he has led La rondine, Norma, Le Cid, Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Lucia di Lammermoor, L'elisir d'amore and La bohème. He made his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut in December 2003 in Samson et Dalila, returned there in 2008 to conduct Manon, in 2009 to conduct The Merry Widow, and conducted Les Contes d'Hoffmann in October of 2011.
He has conducted many other North American opera companies including San Francisco Opera (Madama Butterfly, Werther); Los Angeles Opera (Les Contes d'Hoffmann, La rondine and La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein); Santa Fe Opera (Carmen); Dallas Opera (Faust and Le nozze di Figaro); Sarasota Opera (Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Die Zauberflöte and Manon); the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (La rondine and Faust) and Opéra de Montréal (La vie parisienne). In South America, he conducted Pelléas et Mélisande at Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires.
Villaume debuted at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden conducting Les Contes d'Hoffmann in October 2000 and returned there in 2004 for La rondine starring Angela Gheorghiu and Jonas Kaufmann. In January 2007 he made his conducting debut at La Fenice in Venice with Meyerbeer's Il crociato in Egitto which opened the 2007 season and returned there for Thaïs in October of that year. He has appeared twice at the Klangbogen Festival in Vienna, with Don Quichotte in 2002 and Goya starring Plácido Domingo in 2004.
Other European opera appearances include Cologne Opera (La bohème and Werther); Teatro Real, Madrid (Les Contes d'Hoffmann); Opéra Bastille (Rigoletto); Hamburg Staatsoper (Der fliegende Holländer); Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse, (Mignon); Bonn Opera (La fanciulla del West); the Martina Franca Festival (La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein); Cagliari (Cherubin); Opéra de Marseille (Pelléas et Mélisande, Carmen, Norma, and Samson et Dalila); Opéra de Nice (Faust); Monte Carlo Opera (La Périchole and Werther); Deutsche Oper Berlin (Tosca); the Teatro Regio in Turin (Ariane et Barbe-Bleue), and (Les Contes d'Hoffmann); and Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto (Padmavati).
In North America, Villaume has led the Montreal Symphony, Quebec Symphony, Chicago Symphony and the Boston Symphony as well as the Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Detroit, Minnesota, Utah, and Oregon Symphony orchestras. He has also appeared at the Grant Park, Tanglewood and Aspen music festivals. European orchestras he has conducted include the Royal Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France; Bonn's Beethovenhalle Orchestra, the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Duisburger Philharmoniker, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Kungliga Filharmonikerna, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Prague Philharmonia. In Australia, he has led the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane symphony orchestras, and in China he has conducted the China National Opera Orchestra in conjunction with the 2008 Olympic Games. He conducted the Richard Tucker Foundation Gala with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall.
Emmanuel Villaume holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Indianapolis.