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INTRODUCTION
A constant presence on the podium of the orchestra of Teatro alla Scala, conductor, composer, and writer Frédéric Chaslin delighted us with his musical guidance of Offenbach’s Les Contes d'Hoffmann in a production by Davide Livermore in March. About this French operatic masterpiece & the version that M° Chaslin chose to present to the Milanese audience, about the past, the present and the future of opera, but not only, in a conversation led by Bianca L. Nica. He needs no further introduction. Therefore, we can only invite you to enjoy reading!
BIOGRAPHY
Conductor, composer, pianist and author, Frédéric Chaslin was born in Paris and educated at the Paris Conservatoire and the Salzburg Mozarteum. He became assistant of Daniel Barenboim from 1987 to 1989 at the Orchestre de Paris and Bayreuth Festival, in 1989 he became Pierre Boulez’s assistant at the Ensemble Intercontemporain until 1991. He became successively Music Director of the Opera in Rouen (1991-94), the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (1998-2001), the Mannheim Nationaltheater (2004-2007), the Santa Fe Opera (2009-2013) and for his second tenure, the Jerusalem Symphony (2011-2019). Frédéric Chaslin divides his conducting activities equally between operatic and symphonic performances. At the opera, he conducted New York Metropolitan (since 2002), Los Angeles Opera, Berlin Deutsche Oper, Munich Bayerische Staatsoper, as well as Leipzig, Dresden, Madrid, Bologna, Roma, Venice, Torino, Tokyo, Oslo, Copenhagen. Frédéric Chaslin made his Austrain debuts in 1993 at the Bregenzer Festspiele for Nabucco (93, 94) and Fidelio (95, 96). Since 1997, he is a regular guest conductor at the Vienna State Opera where he conducted nearly 250 performances of 34 different tittles, as well as concert with the Vienna Philharmonic as a conductor and as a pianist (September 2001, Beethoven 5th piano concerto. Paril 2018, Mahler’s 5th Symphony). He performed several piano concertos as a conductor/pianist (Ravel 2 piano concertos, Beethoven 5 piano concertos with the Vienna Philharmonic, Mozart K488 with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra). As a composer, Frederic Chaslin is published by Universal Edition, Vienna, with over 250 works including 5 operas, over 72 melodies in several cycles for voices, chamber music, symphonic music, piano music. As an author, Frédéric Chaslin wrote an essay, Music in Every Sense, published in Paris (France-Empire) and Germany (Böhlau) and available in English on Kindle. and in October 2017 he released a novel based on the life of Gustav Mahler, Being Gustav Mahler, (Fayard, Paris) together with his own orchestration of Mahler’s 10th symphony that has been premiered on Nov 30th, 2018, with the Zagreb Philharmonic. In summer 2022 Frédéric Chaslin made his debut in a staged production at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where he led Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. Opera engagements in the 2022/23 season include his return to La Scala with a new staging of Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Lakmé at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège and Tosca at the Tokyo Spring Festival, while on the concert platform he appears in cities such as Paris, Brussels, Marseille, Lisbon, Trieste and Bolzano.
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INTERVIEW
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Alice Lechner comes from a music-loving family. Her first encounter with the opera universe was at the tender age of six. The grandeur of the stage productions and costumes, the backstage chatter, and last, but definitely not least, the music left her in awe, beginning with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The overall feeling that opera awakens in anyone who gets a glimpse into this part of artistic eternity, that each and every day passes the test of time, was what drew her to stay and be a part of this world. The Opera House of Brașov became her second home, and the people who worked there were her second family.
Since then, Alice has devoted her spare time to maximising her musical knowledge through instrumental studies, studying both piano and violin for a short time. In the following years, her number one passion stepped out of the limelight and graciously gave way to Law Studies.
Since 2018 she has been studying Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.
Her passion for opera, even if it is no longer her top professional priority in terms of career, it has most definitely become her priority during her free time. Wanting to experience the best of both worlds and extend her musical horizons, she regularly attends opera performances throughout Romania and abroad.
With OPERA Charm Magazine, Alice aims to nurture her creative side to help it flourish and bloom and to discover, alongside the magazine’s readers, the fascinatingly complex world of opera.
Currently, she is an LL.M. in Business Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.
Oana Zamfir is a second year MA student at the “George Enescu” National University of Arts, at the Department of Musicology.
She studied violin for 12 years at the “Stefan Luchian” High School of Art in Botosani, later focusing on the theoretical aspects of music. In 2019 she completed her bachelor studies in Musicology as a student of the National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” in Cluj-Napoca. Her research during 2018-2019 brought to the forefront elements of the archaic ritual within works of composers who activated during the communist period, giving her the opportunity to start a research internship at the “Carl von Ossietzky” University in Germany. In this context, she recorded conversations with members of the Sophie Drinker Institute in Bremen, and had access to documents directly from the Myriam Marbé archive.
Since 2019 she has been a teacher of Music Education and Theoretical Music Studies, making full use of interactive methods in the musical training of students and working, at the same time, with the children’s choir founded in the first year of her activity.
Her interests include pursuing a degree in interior design in 2020.
Alexandru Suciu inherited his passion for art growing up in a family of several generations of musicians. He began his musical studies at the “Augustin Bena” School of Music in Cluj, where he studied piano and guitar. Even though his main study direction was philological, his passion for music prevailed. He began his academical journey at the Faculty of Letters of the “Babeș-Bolyai” University, studying Comparative literature and English. He continued by studying Opera Singing at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy. He also graduated the Musical Education section, followed by Artistic Directing at the Musical Performing Arts department.
His multidisciplinary education opened the doors towards research, which is seen both through his participation in national and international conferences and symposia, such as the Salzburg Easter School PhD-forum, organized by the Salzburg Universität or the Silesian Meeting of Young Scholars, organized by the Institute of English at the University of Silesia, as well as the collaboration with Opera Charm Magazine.
During his student years, he won several prizes, including the Grand Prize at the “Paul Constantinescu” National Musical Interpretation Competition, the Romanian Composers and Musicologists’ Union Prize at the same competition, the First Prize and the Schubert Prize at the “Ada Ulubeanu” Competition.
He further developed his artistic skills by specializing in courses and masterclasses held by personalities such as Vittorio Terranova, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Marian Pop, Ines Salazar, Riccardo Zanellato, Paolo Bosisio, Valentina Farcaș and Manuel Lange in contexts such as the Internationale Sommerakademie für Operngesang Deutschlandsberg, Corso Internazionale di Canto Lirico I.M.C. Licata or the Europäische Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst Montepulciano. Besides his activity on-stage, he currently teaches Opera Singing Didactics, and Pedagogical Practice within the Department for Teacher Education and Training at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy.
Cristina is a 24 year-old Romanian soprano & a student at the National University of Music Bucharest, where she pursues the MA program in Vocal Performance.
She made her debut in Pamina from “Die Zauberflöte” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at only 19 years old at the Bucharest National Opera House, as a member of the Ludovic Spiess Experimental Opera Studio. Over the years she made her debut in roles such as Contessa d’Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Mimì & Musetta (La Bohème), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte) in her university’s opera productions.
Her passion and experience extends in the field of choral music, too.
She has been part of our dream team since the fall of 2021. For a good period of time she took care of OPERA Charm’s social media and took you on the monthly journey through the history of opera through our Legends rubric – and a few times through the Theaters around the World rubric.
Her little soul rubric – from 2021 to present – is definitely the Conductors of the Future, where, every month, she gives you the chance to meet a young star of the world of conducting and, of course, to find out what’s the most charming feature of opera in these artists’ views.
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