Thielemann, who has regularly led the Staatskapelle, will succeed Barenboim from September 2024.
The German conductor Christian Thielemann will succeed the Israeli-Argentinian maestro Daniel Barenboim to the direction of the Berlin Staatsoper, which the latter left for health reasons, the prestigious German institution announced on Wednesday. Last January, the 80-year-old pianist and conductor born in Argentina, Barenboim, suffering from a serious neurological illness, announced his resignation from the Berlin Opera.
The head of Culture in Berlin, Joe Chialo, indicated that Christian Thielemann, who has regularly conducted the orchestra of the Berlin Staatsoper, the Staatskapelle, will succeed Barenboim from September 2024. The Berlin State Operalocated on the grand Unter den Linden avenue in the former SST part of the German capital, is one of the city’s three opera houses.
Read alsoDaniel Barenboim resigns from Berlin Staatsoper due to ‘serious neurological illness’
Born in Berlin, clical music star Christian Thielemann is known for his love of Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner. Last year, his production at the Staatsoper du Ringthe famous tetralogy by Richard Wagner also known as theRing of the Nibelung in French, had been “unanimously described as phenomenal”, according to the German daily Berliner Zeitung.
The German conductor, aged 64, is under contract until next year with the Staatskapelle of Dresden, whose orchestra he directs, one of the most renowned in the German-speaking world. A protégé of the legendary Herbert von Karajan, Christian Thielemann was general music director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, an opera house in the west of the capital, but resigned in 2004 due to a financing dispute with the city.