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Vito Žuraj's first full-length opera Blühen (Blossoming), named Premiere of the Year by Opernwelt magazine in 2023, will be revived at Oper Frankfurt from 1 to 9 October under the musical direction of Michael Wendeberg. In our interview, Vito Žuraj talks about his collaboration with librettist Händl Klaus, director Brigitte Fassbaender and the Ensemble Modern.
Before his career as a conductor, Michael Wendeberg was a member of the Ensemble Intercontemporain as a pianist and worked closely with Pierre Boulez. On the fifth anniversary of Boulez’ death, his complete recording of the composer's piano works were released.
Vito Žuraj, Blühen
Michael Wendeberg, conductor
Ensemble Modern
Vito Žuraj, composition
Brigitte Fassbaender, stage direction
Compositions by Pierre Boulez and Betsy Jolas
Michael Wendeberg, piano
Nicolas Hodges, piano
Wolfgang Mitterer, trisch tratsch - johann strauss II - great hits - a remix
Klangforum Wien
João Carlos Pinto, new work for ensemble (world premiere)
Rebecca Saunders, Scar
Magnus Lindberg, Duo Concertante for clarinet, cello and ensemble
Victor Pereira, clarinet
Oliver Parr, violoncello
Remix Ensemble Casa da Música, Porto
György Ligeti, Chamber Concerto
Enno Poppe, Knochen
Pierre Boulez, Douze Notations
Pierre Boulez, Klaviersonate Nr. 1
Pierre Boulez, Piano Sonata No. 2
Pierre Boulez, Klaviersonate Nr. 3
Pierre Boulez, Incises
Pierre Boulez, Trait initial (premier trait médian), from Sonata No. 3
Pierre Boulez, Page d‘éphéméride
Classical repertoire – from Bach to Boulez – comes to conductor and pianist Michael Wendeberg with just as much ease as his dedicated work with new music. At the start of the 2025/26 season, he will conduct at the Klangspuren Schwaz festival before returning to Frankfurt Opera with a revival of Vito Žuraj's Blühen. In the second half of the season, he will conduct the world premiere of Sarah Nemtsov's Wir (We) at Theater Dortmund, staged by Eva-Maria Höckmayr. He will also perform with Klangforum Wien in Tongyeong, conduct the Remix Ensemble in Porto, and lead Zender's Winterreise with Julian Prégardien and Ensemble Modern. Further he will return to the Slovenian Philharmonic in Ljubljana, Villach and Maribor with Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin and works by Illés, Hren and Isabel Mundry. As a pianist, he will play Johannes Brahms' entire solo works in Berlin in early 2026 and all of Pierre Boulez's solo works at the Pierre Boulez Saal in late 2025.
Michael Wendeberg has conducted renowned orchestras and ensembles including WDR Symphony Orchestra, SWR Symphony Orchestra, MDR Symphony Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Ensemble intercontemporain, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Basel Sinfonietta, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, and Staatskapelle Berlin. In 2022, Michael Wendeberg made his debut with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra with Debussy's Jeux and the world premiere of Isabel Mundry's Viola Concerto with Nils Mönkemeyer. In 2023 he stood in for Daniel Barenboim at both the piano and the conductor's desk in concerts with works by Mozart, Boulez and Manoury with the Boulez Ensemble in Berlin and at the Philharmonie in Paris. He has made guest appearances at the Lucerne Festival, Munich Biennale, Beethovenfest Bonn, Bregenz Festival, Venice Biennale, ECLAT Festival Stuttgart, Ultraschall Berlin Festival, Acht Brücken Festival Cologne and Klangspuren Schwaz as well as at Wien Modern. He served as Music Director of the Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva from 2011 to 2018.
Michael Wendeberg’s opera repertoire ranges from Handel's Orlando to Mozart, Beethoven, Donizetti, Verdi, Bizet, Puccini, Strauss, Wagner, and Britten, and includes numerous world premieres. From 2014 to 2017, he conducted several series of Die Zauberflöte at the Berlin State Opera, as well as a new production of Aribert Reimann's Gespenstersonate. In 2022, he gave his debut at the Semperoper Dresden with the world premiere of Torsten Rasch’s Die andere Frau. From 2016 to 2023, he was “Erster Kapellmeister” at the Bühnen Halle (Saale), where he also served as Chief Conductor of the opera from 2020 to 2022. There he conducted premieres of Mozart's Don Giovanni, Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, among others.
Michael Wendeberg studied piano with Markus Stange, Bernd Glemser, Stefan Litwin and Benedetto Lupo, and conducting with Toshiyuki Kamioka. During this time, he worked as Toshiyuki Kamioka’s assistant at the Wuppertaler Bühnen. After graduating, Michael Wendeberg held positions at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, Lucerne Theatre, and the Staatsoper Berlin, where he assisted Daniel Barenboim and guest conductors such as Pierre Boulez and Sir Simon Rattle.
As a pianist, Michael Wendeberg has won several national and international piano competitions and performed as a soloist at renowned festivals and with prestigious orchestras under conductors such as Jonathan Nott, Marek Janowski, and Daniel Barenboim. From 2000 to 2005 he was a member of the Ensemble intercontemporain and worked closely with György Kurtag and Pierre Boulez. In 2015, he played Boulez’s complete works for piano as part of the easter festival at the Staatsoper Berlin and in 2018 at the Boulez Saal. The Berlin label bastille has released CDs featuring Michael Wendeberg both as a pianist (Boulez's piano works, 2021) and as a conductor (Sur Incises and Eclat-Multiples, 2025).
This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorised by the artist management.
CONDUCTED PROGRAMME 1
CONDUCTED PROGRAMME 2
PIANO PROGRAMME 1
PIANO PROGRAMME 2
“With virtuosity, Michael Wendeberg emphasizes the individual passages, bringing out delicate, dreamy lyrical lines and allowing his audience to partake in the captivating journey through the varying moods – sometimes playful, sparkling, and at other times full of energy with lively contrasts.“
Schwarzwälder Bote, Ulrike Zimmermann, 10.2.2025 (on a piano recital with Beethoven and Skrjabin)
“The quality of the TLT choir and Tiroler Symphonieorchester remains undisputed, with Michael Wendeberg as a precise conductor, who accentuates and softens in the right places, but also gives the singers the necessary space to shine in the arias.”
Tiroler Tageszeitung, Barbara Unterthurner, 29/4/2024 (on Le Nozze di Figaro at the Tiroler Landestheater)
“The conductor and pianist Michael Wendeberg accompanied all the recitatives with vigour on the fortepiano. Mozart's music was performed in a fresh, direct, virtuosic, and heartfelt manner, stimulating and with tastefully chosen tempi.”
Onlinemerker, Thomas Nußbaumer, 27/4/2024
“[In Mozart's Gran Partita] Wendeberg's conducting is energetic, almost fiery.”
Diapason, Pierre Rigaudière, 5/5/2023
“The orchestra under the sovereign baton of Michael Wendeberg, who stepped in at very short notice, accompanied very sensitively and emphasised the expressive singing in perfect harmony. Already in the first half of the concert, the Philharmonic had produced glowing colours, explored the greatest possible dynamic contrasts, and luxuriated in rich sonority with sweeping gestures."
Weser Kurier, Gerd Klingeberg, 26/2/2023
On Blühen at Frankfurt Opera“The Ensemble Modern under Michael Wendeberg bring Vito Žuraj's music, which is as complex as it is sensuous in every moment, to life and glow.“
BR-KLASSIK, Jörn Florian Fuchs, 23/1/2013
On the opening concert in the Pierre Boulez Saal“Michael Wendeberg is an absolute Boulez expert. He plays not only competently down to the last detail, but also full of wit and irony. I have rarely experienced this notation of Boulez more sensually.“
rbb kulturradio, Andreas Göbel, 6/9/2022
On Ein Traumspiel at Halle Opera“In the pit, the music is in the best hands with Michael Wendeberg. What he makes of the score with the Staatskapelle is of captivatingly clear transparency.“
nmz, Joachim Lange, 10/5/2022
On Manru at Halle Opera“The orchestra's precise articulation, the sense of overriding formal progressions, the plasticity of the permanently blossoming sound images are all captivating.“
Opernwelt, Jürgen Otten, May 2022
“Conductor Michael Wendeberg powerfully brings the music to the foreground.“
Concerti, André Sperber, 21/3/2022
On Tristan and Isolde at Halle Opera“In the prelude, the orchestra and conductor are projected onto dividing stage curtains. So you can see that the fabulous Michael Wendeberg gets along without notes or a podium. The orchestra that will one day secure him as GMD can count itself lucky - in Halle he has the status of a prophet in his own country.“
nmz, Joachim Lange, 8/1/2022
“The Staatskapelle Halle plays in outstanding form both in the details and in the musical climaxes and in the great arcs - from the quiet very calm beginning of the prelude to the magnificent Liebestod - under the sovereign and extremely secure direction of the acting principal conductor Michael Wendeberg (he would make a terrific GMD), who conducted the huge score from memory.”
Klassik begeistert (Blog), Guido Müller, 6/1/2022
On A Midsummer Night's Dream at Halle Opera“The Staatskapelle played with enchanting precision and, under the baton of Michael Wendeberg, met the special challenge of contributing the atmospheric part of the Gesamtkunstwerk quite brilliantly.”
Concerti, Joachim Lange, 19/9/2021
“Michael Wendeberg and Nicolas Hodges succeed in consistently interesting interpretations because they breathe real life into the pieces. In the early works some emotion penetrates Wendeberg’s sensitive, singing playing.“
Pizzicato, Remy Franck, 18/2/2021 - on the CD Pierre Boulez: Constellation-Miroir
“Boulez specialist and conductor Wendeberg, who worked with the composer himself during his lifetime [...] sets the tone: dynamic, energetic, and assured.”
Tagesspiegel, Christiane Peitz, 21/10/2020 - on the piano duo recital with Nicolas Hodges / Pierre Boulez's Structures
“From the orchestra pit, Michael Wendeberg (who frequently delivers and whom one could well imagine in place of the Staatskapelle's GMD Ariane Matiakh, who seems to again have gone astray) ensured a supple orchestral sound that always supported and spurred on the singers, without falling into a by-the-numbers revue.”
nmz, Joachim Lange, 2/3/2020 - on Don Giovanni (Oper Halle)
“Wendeberg also places special emphasis on the tender and introspective musical passages of this opera. A touching musical interpretation.”
Klassik begeistert, Guido Müller, 29/2/2020
“Michael Wendeberg’s interpretation was gripping, with sharp and accurate dotted notes and impactful climaxes, yet also with room for rest and contemplation.“
Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, 19/2/2020
“With relish, Michael Wendeberg inspires the musicians of the Staatskapelle to traverse both the precision of chamber music and the full opulence of Strauss.”
nmz, Joachim Lange, 24/2/2019
Janáček's piano works | Sonata 1, X. | Oper Halle |
Michael Wendeberg @ Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin 2018
I. Stravinsky: Fire Bird
G. Verdi: Messa da Requiem | Oper Halle
Original version in German language. Thomas Mohr, Franziska Krötenheerdt, Romelia Lichtenstein, Gabriella Guilfoil, Levent Bakirci, Chor der Oper Halle, Staatskapelle Halle, Michael Wendeberg
CPO, 2023, 0761203555321
Michael Wendeberg, Nicolas Hodges
destille, 2021, bm16