Alejo Pérez

Biography

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 recent years, the conductor has appeared to great acclaim at the Salzburg Festival (Faust, Werther)), at the Semperoper Dresden, Teatro Colón (Parsifal, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos), and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In 2022/23, he made his debut at the New National Theatre Tokyo with Tannhäuser and continued his collaboration with Grand Théâtre de Genève and Calixto Bieito for a new production of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, following War and Peace in September 2021. The season 2023/24 sees him as a guest for new productions of Katya Kabanova (staging: Calixto Bieito) at the Semperoper Dresden, of Henze’s Gogo no eiko (Amon Miyamoto) at the Tokyo Nikikai Opera, and of The Nightingale and other fables (Robert Lepage) at the Adelaide Festival.

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 including Pelléas et Mélisande (Marina Abramovich, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui), Lohengrin (David Alden), Don Carlos (Johan Simons), and Tristan and Isolde (Philippe Grandrieux). He will kick off the Flemish season 2023/24 with La Clemenza di Tito (Milo Rau) and conclude it with Jenůfa (Robert Carsen). He will further be at the rostrum of the Opera Vlaanderen’s Symphonic Orchestra for concert highlights such as Fauré’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, as well as for Petrouchka/The Seven Deadly Sins with the Ballet Vlaanderen.

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 Stuttgart Opera (Cherubini’s Medea, The Love for Three Oranges, Werther); 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.

2023/24 season

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Repertoire

Opera

T. Adès

Powder her face

L. v. Beethoven

Fidelio

A. Berg

Lulu

Wozzeck

H. Berlioz

La damnation de Faust

G. Bizet

Carmen

B. Britten

Death in Venice

L. Cherubini

Medea

P. Eötvös

Angels in America

Lady Sarashina

Of Love and other Demons

C. Debussy

Pelléas et Mélisande

P. Dessau

Deutsches Miserere

P. Dusapin

Medeamaterial

C.-W. Gluck

Iphigénie en Tauride

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Programmes

PROGRAMME SUGGESTIONS

Haydn: Symphony No. 22 in E-flat major

Stravinsky: Violin Concerto in D major

Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43

Mozart: Masonic Funeral Music in C minor, K. 477

Strauss: Four Last Songs

Kurtág: Stele, Op. 33

Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 ‘Jupiter’

Mahler: Rückert-Lieder

Debussy: La damoiselle élue

Schönberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra Op. 16

Scriabin: Symphony No. 4, Op. 54 ‘Le Poème de l’Extase’

Schreker: ‘The Stigmatised’ – Prelude to Act I

Berg: Lulu Suite

Gounod: Ballet Music from ‘Faust’

Strauss: Symphonic Fantasy on ‘Die Frau ohne Schatten’

Janáček: Taras Bulba

Elgar: Sea Pictures, Op. 37

Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78

References

“We’re in particularly safe hands musically. Alejo Pérez conducts without artifice and presents Stravinsky’s music in all its honesty. Argentinian by birth and serving at the Flemish Opera since 2019, Pérez is a breath of fresh air in the way he approaches the composer’s early works. Avoiding artifice, he conducts with pure naturalness and grace. An enthused, spirited Adelaide Symphony Orchestra follow with their usual high degree of accomplishment.”

InReview, Graham Strahle, 2/3/2024 (The Nightingale and Other Fables, Adelaide Festival)

“The Orkest Opera Ballet Vlaanderen was terrific. Alejo Perez’s baton was absolutely in time with the youthful exuberance of this production: daring flourishes of fortepiano in the recitatives, electrifying articulation in the strings, the ‘mafia funeral’ moments for the trumpets – those heralds of Verdi – and, of course, there was pure clarinet seduction.”

bachtrack.com, Eleanor Knight, 12/9/2023 (La Clemenza di Tito, Opera Vlaanderen)

“Pérez succeeds in giving a large ensemble the sound and energy usually found in smaller ensembles.”

forumopera.com, Maxime de Brogniez, 21/9/2023 (La Clemenza di Tito, Opera Vlaanderen)

“Conductor Alejo Pérez has the orchestra striving and yearning, swirling with passion and endlessly tender singing especially in Tristan’s death scene and Isolde’s Love Death.”

KLARA, Sylvia Broeckaert, 23/3/2023 (Tristan und Isolde, Opera Vlaanderen)

“The music then becomes the key word of the performance, first and foremost through the direction of Alejo Pérez. His intense reading of the work (…) is greeted with a standing ovation by the audience.”

Forum Opera, Christophe Rizoud, 26/3/2023 (Tristan und Isolde, Opera Vlaanderen)

“The production is carried out by an impeccable cast, supported by Alejo Pérez’ 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, 9/9/2022 (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, 2/3/2020 (Der Schmied von Gent)

“Alejo Pérez’ 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, 7/10/2018

“The crispness and elegance of Alejo Pérez’ conducting style are combined with the kind of inspiring imaginative ability an orchestra needs to test and transcend its boundaries.”

Die Welt, Peter Krause, 21/3/2018

“Pérez impressed as a podium talent to watch.”

Chicago Tribune, John von Rhein, 27/2/2017

“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, 20/8/2016

“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, 17/3/2015 (The Stigmatised)

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