Contact
Karoline Jacobkj@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-221
Yan Dribinskyyd@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-230
General Management
From 9 September, Alejo Pérez will conduct Kurt Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny as music director of Opera Vlaanderen in a new production staged by Ivo van Hove in Antwerp and Ghent.
In 2019, Alejo Pérez conducted Sergei Prokofiev's operatic tragedy The Fiery Angel to great acclaim at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. The production is now available on DVD.
The chemistry is right: Alejo Pérez about his new position at the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen.
Kurt Weill, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Alejo Pérez, conductor
Symfonisch Orkest Opera Vlaanderen
Ivo van Hove, stage direction
Jules Massenet, Werther
Staatsorchester Stuttgart
Rachael Wilson, mezzo-soprano
Atalla Ayan, tenor
Felix Rothenhäusler, stage direction
Wiener Philharmoniker
Andrei Serban, stage direction
It would be wonderful to attend the performance twice and the second time around only look with one’s ears. The music under the Argentine conductor Alejo Pérez [...] was performed with intensity of the highest order. Jürgen Kesting, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
As a conductor, Alejo Pérez possesses an inherent stylistic awareness and the ability to bring every detail of the most complex score to life. This has consistently secured him a firm place on the international opera and concert scene.
In his role as music director, Alejo Pérez has been forming the sonic identity of the Flemish Opera since September 2019 - a theatre which has received much international recognition in recent years. There, he made strong appearances in new productions of Pelléas et Mélisande (directed by Abramovich, Cherkaoui), Lohengrin (David Alden), Don Carlos (Johan Simons), Schreker’s Schmied von Gent (Ersan Mondtag) and C(h)oeurs 2022 by Alain Platel. During the Flemish Opera’s 2022/23 season he will conduct new productions of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Ivo van Hove) and Tristan and Isolde (Philippe Grandrieux), as well as such symphonic masterpieces as Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem and Mahler’s Symphony No. 9.
In recent years, the conductor has appeared to great acclaim at the Salzburg Festival (including a performance of Gounod’s Faust with the Vienna Philharmonic), at the Teatro Colón (Parsifal, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos), at the Semperoper Dresden, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Highlights of the 2022/23 season include his debut at the New National Theatre Tokyo with Tannhäuser and his return to the Wiener Staatsoper (Werther) and the Staatsoper Stuttgart (Werther). Following his successful debüt with War and Peace in September 2021, he will continue his collaboration with Grand Théâtre de Genève and Calixto Bieito for a new production of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.
Alejo Pérez has been a guest with numerous internationally renowned orchestras, such as Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, SWR Symphony Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Ensemble Intercontemporain. He also enjoys longstanding working relationships with the Opéra de Lyon (Pelléas et Mélisande, The Stigmatized, GerMANIA, From the House of the Dead), and the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma (La Cenerentola, The Nose, Lulu, The Fiery Angel). In addition, engagements have taken him to the Tokyo Nikikai Opera, Opéra de Bastille, the Cologne, Frankfurt, and Leipzig Operas, Norwegian National Opera, Teatr Wielki Warsaw, and La Monnaie de Munt.
Between 2009 and 2012 Alejo Pérez served as music director of the Teatro Argentino de La Plata, to which he brought a new lease of life with internationally acclaimed performances. From 2010, he was one of the main conductors at the Teatro Real Madrid in the era of Gerard Mortier, closely working with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid for concerts with Plácido Domingo, Eva-Maria Westbroek, and Ian Bostridge, and celebrated productions of Rienzi, Don Giovanni, Death in Venice, Golijov’s Ainadamar, and Rihm’s Die Eroberung von Mexico.
The polyglot Argentinian studied both composition and conducting in addition to piano in his native Buenos Aires, and later in Karlsruhe with Peter Eötvös. Formative periods at the start of his conducting career included assisting Peter Eötvös, Michael Gielen, as well as Christoph von Dohnányi at the NDR Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, Alejo Pérez was awarded the Konex Platinum Award for his artistic achievements – one of the highest honours in his home country Argentina.
2022/23 season
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PROGRAMME SAMPLES
"The production is carried out by an impeccable cast, supported by Alejo Pérez's scalpel-precise direction, which highlights the score's modernity, its power, its formal and orchestral richness, and its lyricism, leaving the audience overwhelmed by its power at the end."
Avant Scène Opera, Alfred Caron, 09/09/2022 (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Opera Vlaanderen)
“Alejo Pérez on the podium of the brilliant Orchestre de la Suisse Romande ingeniously implements Bieito's concept with the means of conducting dialectics. The Argentinean subtly traces the ambiguity of the score. Prokofiev proves to be much more subtle in his alienation than his colleague Shostakovich. Whoever says yes (especially in the overwhelming chorus parts) may very well mean no. For all the lavishness of the music-making, Alejo Pérez twists and turns the staves, discovers in all the sensitively played out nuances what a great complex score Prokofiev has left us here.”
Opernwelt, Peter Krause, November 2021 (War and Peace, Grand Théâtre de Genève)
“Alejo Pérez, remarkably efficient, alert to every feeling, revealing tenderness as well as murderous madness, an unparalleled creator and lover of sound, is particularly at ease in this musical element.”
letemps.ch, Sylvie Bonier, 16/9/2021 (War and Peace, Grand Théâtre de Genève)
“A splendid production, both in its staging and in its musical execution. Alejo Pérez, together with the Flemish Opera Symphony Orchestra, not only revels in the late-Romantic orchestral floods; he captures the forward-rushing, pulsating parlando sound, as well as the flashing wit and twists and turns ranging from joie de vivre to the depths of the abyss.”
Die deutsche Bühne, Joachim Lange, 02/03/2020 (Der Schmied von Gent)
“Alejo Pérez's musical direction cuts the Lyon Opera Orchestra to the bone, bringing forth a clear, incisive sound, with the brass section taken to its limits, solo violinist Nicolas Gourbeix an admirable standout, and the conductor striking an extraordinary balance between lyricism and severity, a tour de force approach to Janáček’s complex music.”
Christian Merlin, Le Figaro, 24/1/2019
“Musically, the Flemish Opera´s symphony orchestra showed itself to be in top form. For Alejo Pérez, the new music director of the house, this "Lohengrin" was first and foremost a resounding personal success. With energy and focus, the conductor successfully built the tension -- from the clear, ethereally shimmering prelude, to the pounding rhythms of the choral scenes in the first act, through to the dramaturgically pointed scenes in the second act between Friedrich and Ortrud as well as Ortrud and Elsa, to the pleasing sensibility of the third act.”
Das Opernglas, M. Fiedler, 07/10/2018
“The crispness and elegance of Alejo Pérez´s conducting style are combined with the kind of inspiring imaginative ability an orchestra needs to test and transcend its boundaries.”
Die Welt, Peter Krause, 21/03/2018
“Pérez impressed as a podium talent to watch.”
Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein, 27/02/2017
“More relaxed and joyful than in the Strauss, the Vienna Philharmonic and the highly-talented Alejo Pérez created a wonderful sound, treading the fine line between penetrating pathos and sentiment without becoming sweet or sensationalist. In Marguerite’s great scene, the conductor and orchestra sparkled. A great achievement.”
Online Musik Magazin, Thomas Tillmann, 20/08/2016
“Alejo Pérez conducted the Teatro Colón orchestra with great devotion and attention to detail. (...) The great interludes were also impressively successful.”
Der neue Merker, Klaus Billand, December 2015 (Parsifal)
“From Wagner’s opulence to the soft backlight of impressionism, from veristic emotional outbursts to seditiously expressionistic opalescence: under the direction of the magician Alejo Pérez who can turn frogs into princes, the orchestra of l’Opéra de Lyon brought Schreker’s visions to life.”
Le Monde, 17/03/2015 (The Stigmatized)
C. Gounod: Faust
Salzburger Festspiele, Wiener Philharmoniker
S. Prokofiev: The Fiery Angel - Trailer
Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
G. Rossini: La Cenerentola - Trailer
N. Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg
B. Britten: Peter Grimes, Four Sea Interludes
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
F. Poulenc: Concerto for two pianos
Martha Argerich, Nelson Goerner, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
S. Prokofiev: The Fiery Angel (Blu-ray)
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Emma Dante, Alejo Pérez, a.o.
Naxos, 2021, 2.110663
C. Gounod: Faust (Blu-ray)
Wiener Philharmoniker, Reinhard von der Thannen, Alejo Pérez, Piotr Beczała, a.o.
Euro Arts, 2017, 2097034
G. Rossini: La Cenerentola (Blu-ray)
C Major, 2020, 752504
B. Britten: Death in Venice (Blu-ray)
Teatro Real Chorus and Orchestra, Willy Decker, Alejo Pérez, a.o.
Naxos, 2018, 8732636
Les Ballets Russes Vol. 8.N. Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, Alejo Pérez, a.o.
Hänssler classic, 2012, 93.289