Titus Engel

“The state orchestra performs miracles, the choir does the same as the instrumentalists. What happens here musically is of the utmost magnificence, Titus Engel conducts this highly complex construct with stupendous naturalness.” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12/6/2023, Egbert Tholl

In 2020 Titus Engel was named Conductor of the Year by Opernwelt magazine. With his comprehensive view of repertoire from a wide range of musical eras, he consistently grasps works in their multifaceted relationality. Respected for his expertise in the field of historical performance practice as well as for his precise conducting of complex contemporary projects, the Berlin-based Zurich native can also be seen regularly performing central works of opera literature. Always ready to break new ground in his exploration of staged concepts on the podium, he sees music theatre as a field of experimentation in which social utopias can flourish.

In the 2024/2525 season, he will return to Oper Frankfurt with the Frankfurt premiere of Aribert Reimann's L'invisible and the revival of La Damoiselle élue / Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher, and he will conduct the world premiere of Michael Wertmüller's Echo 72. Israel in Munich at the Staatsoper Hannover. In concerts, he works with the big band and orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin at the Musikfest Berlin, and with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. As Principal Conductor of the Basel Sinfonietta, he will be travelling with the orchestra to the Warsaw Autumn Festival and the Hamburg Music Festival at the Elbphilharmonie. Under the motto ‘Ritual and Relevance’, the Basel Sinfonietta's current season programme includes a project focusing on compositional perspectives on the war in Ukraine and, to mark the Women's European Football Championship in Switzerland, Moritz Eggert's soccer oratorio Der 7. Himmel.

At the beginning of last season, Titus Engel collaborated with Tobias Kratzer for his new production of Henze’s The Raft of the Medusa at the Komische Oper Berlin, that took place in Hangar 1 of Flughafen Tempelhof. Also 2022/23 season ended with a monumental production: he successfully lead Messiaen‘s Saint François d'Assise in a production throughout the city that was honoured by Opernwelt magazine as the ‘most unusual opera experience of 2023’.

Guest conducting engagements so far have included the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Philharmonia Orchestra, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, SWR and WDR Sinfonieorchester, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Staatsorchester Hannover, Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the chamber orchestras in Zurich and Munich, as well as Ensemble Modern and Klangforum Wien. He worked with the Camerata Salzburg at the Salzburg Festival and at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl, where he conducted all of Brahms' symphonies.

In opera Titus Engel has conducted Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (Theater an der Wien); The Flying Dutchman, Wozzeck, and Blue Beard’s Castle (Stuttgart Opera, Opéra de Lyon), Mozart’s Betulia Liberata, Strauss’ Salome, and Nielsen’s Maskerade (Frankfurt Opera); Haas’ Bluthaus, Lehár’s Giuditta, Hänsel und Gretel (Bayerische Staatsoper), Nunez’s La Douce (Staatsoper Berlin), Glass’ Einstein on the Beach (Grand Théatre de Genève), Der Freischütz and Verdi´s La Traviata (Theater Basel) as well as Lohengrin (Tiroler Festspiele Erl). Titus Engel’s debut at the Teatro Real Madrid conducting the world premiere of Pilar Jurado’s La página en blanco in 2011 was widely praised by the press and audiences alike. He followed this with triumphant world premieres of Charles Wuorinen’s Brokeback Mountain (2014) and Elena Mendoza’s La ciudad de las mentiras (2017). In 2016, together with Lydia Steier he brought the Swiss premiere of Stockhausen's Donnerstag to the stage at Theater Basel – Opernwelt magazine named the production “Performance of the Year”. The premiere of Chaya Czernowin's opera Infinite Now took place in 2017, which he conducted at the Opera Vlaanderen, the Nationaltheater Mannheim, and the Philharmonie de Paris. In 2024 he lead Hèctor Parra’s new opera Justice at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and in St. Pölten. He has also led numerous world premieres at the Salzburg Festival, Berliner Festspiele, Lucerne Festival, the Ruhrtriennale, and the Wiener Konzerthaus.

Titus Engel regularly dedicates time to education projects to inspire people who would otherwise not be on the classical stage with special experiences for music. Examples of this include Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning (Konzerthaus Berlin, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Tonhalle Zurich), John Cage's Music Circus (Alte Oper Frankfurt) and Bernhard Gander's Melting Pot (Haydn Orchestra Bolzano, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne).

After studying musicology and philosophy in Zurich and Berlin he studied conducting in Dresden with Christian Kluttig. This training was supplemented by support from the Conductors Forum of the German Music Council and David Zinman's American Academy of Conducting at Aspen, as well as assistantships with Sylvain Cambreling, Marc Albrecht, and Peter Rundel. Titus Engel has recorded numerous works for radio and CD and is the founder of the Akademie Musiktheater Heute, in addition to having edited several books on contemporary opera.

Season 2024/25

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Programmes

ENERGY AND ATTACKS

Carl Maria von Weber

Overture to Oberon

György Kurtàg

Grabstein für Stephan

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 3

Flowing

Antonín Dvořák

Der Wassermann (Vodnik) op. 107

Wolfgang Rihm

vers une symphonie fleuve III

Alexander von Zemlinsky

The Mermaid - Fantasy for Orchestra

Titan & Tragic Hero

Richard Wagner

Prelude to Tristan and Isolde + Liebestod

Alban Berg

Lyrische Suite

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 1 D major Titan

Ritual Groove

Hildur Gudnadóttir

Ascent for orchestra (2009)

Hildur Gudnadóttir

Opaque for string orchestra (2009)

Hildur Gudnadóttir

Baer for violoncello and string orchestra (2014)

Hildur Gudnadóttir

For Petra for orchestra (2022)

Nik Bärtsch

Aphantasia for Nik Bärtsch’s Mobile and orchestra (2024)

The greatest night of Jazz

Charles Mingus

Epitaph

References

On Reimann‘s L'invisible at the Frankfurt Opera House
"The overall musical impression of the Frankfurt premiere is powerfully enduring. This is due in no small part to Titus Engel's conducting, which eloquently emphasizes the diverse, and at times strikingly contrasting, layers of the score."

Opernwelt, Gerhard R. Koch, May 2025

On Wertmüller's Echo72 at the Staatstheater Hannover
"Musically, the exceptionally complex evening was in the very best and, with this repertoire, also very experienced hands of Titus Engel. In every second, his conducting for both the pit and the stage was absolutely precise and understandable, and at the same time, he managed to maintain exact control over the large sound apparatus, even dynamically. He also gave the finest pianissimos the space they needed."

Opernglas, S. Mauß, March 2025

"Meanwhile, from the pit, which also houses the Steamboat Switzerland jazz trio, Titus Engel skillfully keeps holds the masses together. He is well-versed in the deliberately contrapuntal complexity ambition of his friend Wertmüller, who layers ideas, sounds, and changing rhythms."

VAN, Elelonore Büning, 29/1/2025

"Titus Engel coordinates the groups with a clear rhythm and a constant dynamic increase."

Oper!, Andreas Berger, 28/1/2025

"In the end, the words fall silent, delivering an instrumental, negative apotheosis from the gifted Niedersachsen State Orchestra under Titus Engel, who can conduct such music like no one else, and Steamboat Switzerland, which, in its very wordlessness, encompasses all horrors."

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 27/1/2025, Egbert Tholl

On A Celebration for the Duke (Ellington) with Orchestra and BigBand der Deutschen Oper at Musikfest Berlin
"Titus Engel conducted this second part of the evening. It had real drive."

rbb Radio3, 17/9/2024, Henrike Leißner

On the DVD with Carl Nielsen's Maskarade with the Frankfurt Opern and Museumsorchester
"Titus Engel makes an orchestra shine, which, like the choir, performs at its best."

Diapason, September 2024, Didier Van Moere

On Parra's Justice at the Grand Théâtre de Genève
"Titus Engel is the best advocate of this subtle music with his differentiated, dynamically perfectly balanced conducting of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Even in the powerful choruses, the focus is not on effect, but rather on a heightening of the action with an occasionally oratorical impact."

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 25/1/2024, Marco Frei

"Titus Engel conducts the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande with precision and drive, and the international ensemble is completely convincing."

SRF, 23/1/2024, Ruth Wili

On Henze's The Raft of the Medusa at Komische Oper Berlin
"Henze’s orchestra, too, is capable of explosive power, but mostly the score restrains these grand forces to a stunned, wary quiet, played by the Komische Oper’s orchestra under Engel with remarkable sensuality and subtlety given the necessity of amplification."

The New York Times, 18/9/2023, Zachary Woolfe

"Conductor Titus Engel manages the vast orchestra and massed choirs with a precision and balance which are little short of miraculous, given the acoustic challenges of the space."

Financial Times, Shirley Apthorp, 18/9/2023

On Messiaen's Saint Francois d'Assise at the Stuttgart State Opera
"The state orchestra performs miracles, the choir does the same as the instrumentalists. What happens here musically is of the utmost magnificence, Titus Engel conducts this highly complex construct with stupendous naturalness."

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12/6/2023, Egbert Tholl

"Titus Engel as musical director demands a precise, transparent sound. The maelstrom of static, circling progressions, of rhythmic energy that reaches ecstasy, is thrillingly successful. The orchestra shimmers in all its timbres."

Nachtkritk.de, 12/6/2023, Verena Großkreutz

“Titus Engel leads the orchestra of the Staatsoper Stuttgart, which also takes its place directly on stage in the opera house, with his usual crisp precision, shaping magnificent major-key flows resoundingly and vividly beautiful with his hands. You need a conductor like that on a day like this.”

Opernwelt, August 2023, Arno Lücker

On Bluthaus at the Bayerische Staatsoper
"A stylist, no matter what era. Effortlessly he switches from Monteverdi to Haas with the small ensemble of the Staatsorchester. It is thanks to Engel and the musical faction that this score is understandable."

Merkur, 22/5/2022, Markus Thiel

On the concert at the Staatsoper Hannover
"Titus Engel seems to have Mahler in his DNA: He knew how to correctly place the typical breaks, to create a balance between heaviness and suspension."

Cellesche Zeitung, 2/3/2022, Jörg Worat

On Lehár's Giuditta at the Bayerische Staatsoper
"Engel loves modern scores – and is capable of making them crackle attractively while being unassailably painfully explicit. It bubbles delightfully."

Opernwelt, February 2022, Arno Lücker

On Bluebeard’s Castle (Opéra de Lyon)
"After all, the musical success of this evening is mainly due to Titus Engel. A great performance."

Le Forum, 4/4/2023, Gérard Ferrand

On Zemlinsky's Sinfonietta at the Philharmonie Berlin
"Titus Engel performed with great precision and full emotional commitment. He brought the wonderfully homogeneous sounding Polish Radio Orchestra to both rousing climaxes and dancing lightness."

Tagesspiegel, 7/11/2022, Mario-Felix Vogt

"The evening has one strength and his name is Titus Engel. The Swiss conductor conducts classical modernism with devotion. But he also knows how to conduct snappy marches and a cultivated bliss in operetta."

Abendzeitung Munich, 20/12/2021, Robert Braunmüller

"Titus Engel is one of the production's greatest assets, a polyglot conductor who thinks his way into Lehár as well as Shostakovich or Schönberg and actually conducts the mix of styles as such. The Bavarian State Orchestra can be profitably challenged here."

Münchner Merkur, 19/12/2021, Markus Thiel

On The Marksman at the Theater Basel
"Weber's melodies shine thanks to the Basel Chamber Orchestra under the excellent direction of Titus Engel."

Giornale della musica, 28/12/2022, Stefano Nardelli

"Conductor Titus Engel provides a strong weight to the stage especially with lyrical, dreamlike tones."

Oper!, November 2022, Tobias Gerosa

On Nielsen's Maskerade at Frankfurt Opera
"Titus Engel, as conductor, balances alertly and confidently between burlesque and kind-heartedness in tone. He has a sense for the sinewy linearity of Nielsen's orchestral sound, for the tonally and syntactically slipped cadences, which move some emphases into the inauthentic without denouncing them."

FAZ, 2/11/2021, Jan Brachmann

On Epitaph in the Philharmonie Berlin
"Under the gesturally economical and equally energetic direction of Titus Engel, the musicians of the Big Band and the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper as well as from the Jazzinstitut Berlin explore the expressive worlds of dark menace, intimate songfulness, conflict, and ecstasy on the stage of the Philharmonie with irrepressible joy of playing and remarkable clarity."

Tagesspiegel, 20/9/2022, Isabel Herzfeld

"What conductor Titus Engel conjures out of the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra sets an absolute benchmark for this opera."

SWR, 2/11/2021, Bernd Künzig

"Titus Engel conducts this music with delightful vividness, precisely bringing out its wit. He conducts the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra very briskly, very transparently."

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 1/11/2021, Egbert Tholl

"Titus Engel revels with relish in the changing temperaments and styles of this great national opera of the Danes with the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra."

concerti, 31/10/2021, Joachim Lange

On Wagner's Lohengrin (Tiroler Festspiele Erl)
“Titus Engel on the podium celebrated serious and beautiful lightness instead of myth-steaming force.“

Donaukurier, 27/7/2021, Roland H. Dippel

“Titus Engel knows how to achieve rich facets, tonal beauty, the finest subtlety and arcs of tension from the musicians without covering up the singers."

Kurier, 26/7/2021, Helmut Christian Mayer

On Bluebeard's Castle (Opéra de Lyon)
“Under the baton of Titus Engel both orchestral accounts were polished and full of richness.”

Opera, June 2021, John Allison

“Titus Engel demonstrates familiarity with the work and with contemporary repertoire. Together with an Opéra de Lyon orchestra gleaming with timbres and colours, he brings to the fore the entire sound palette of the score, flamboyant, smooth, jagged, incisive, and insinuating in turn.”

Forumopera.com, 30/3/2021, Charles Sigl

“Although the conductor remains the same, the interpretation of the opera in these two versions is rather different. In the first, Titus Engel focuses on the dynamics and contrasts present in Bartók's score, while in the second he renders beautifully the colours of the orchestra, drawing out exquisite impressionistic nuances and evocative shadings."

Giornaledellamusica.it, 29/3/2021, Mauro Mariani

“Titus Engel seizes this unique opportunity to deliver two musical interpretations of one operatic work in the same evening. He demonstrates how even a score with exacting performance instructions can sound remarkably different.”

Concerti, 28/3/2021, Peter Krause

“In the pit, the highest precision prevailed, paired with elegance and transparency. A merit above all to conductor Titus Engel and his detailed and finely balanced conducting.“

Opernwelt, Jürgen Otten, Yearbook 2020

On the opening of the Festival Klangspuren Schwaz
“At the podium, Titus Engel, repeatedly indispensable when it comes to difficult contemporary music, is superior in technical matters and in the translation into music.“

Tiroler Tageszeitung, 13/9/2020, Ursula Strohal

On BORIS (Staatsoper Stuttgart)
“Renowned conductor Titus Engel's ability to relate the strings to each other without convulsive 'assertion' is just brilliant.“

Salzburger Nachrichten, 23/2/2020, Karl Harb

“Both Titus Engel's conducting and the soloists were strong.“

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 7/2/2020, Marco Frei

“Conductor Titus Engel avoids soppy Romanticism, presenting a multifaceted, interwoven score full of regret and longing.“

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 4/2/2020, Reinhard J. Brembeck

“Moving from Mussorgsky’s score to the interspersed sections of Nevsky’s work was no small task, but conductor Titus Engel directed the music with tremendous ease.“

BR Klassik, 4/2/2020, Peter Jungblut

“From the pit under the direction of Titus Engel, everything sounded thoroughly convincing and very differentiated: always transparent, always finely and sharply cut.“

Die Deutsche Bühne, 03/02/2020, Klaus Kalchschmid

On Einstein on the Beach (Grand Théâtre de Genève)
“Titus Engel’s thoughtful conducting brought out the best of the Geneva Conservatory of Music’s choir and orchestra.“

Opernglas, December 2019, Stephan Burianek

On Diodati.Unendlich (Theater Basel)
“At the premiere [...] the soloists, musicians, choir – and, above all, conductor Titus Engel – did a fantastic job of mastering the highly virtuoso requirements of the score.“

SWR 2, 23/2/2019, Karsten Umlauf

“An astounding achievement [of the conductor Titus Engel] to bring together and develop this with such complexity, such multiplicity.“

Deutschlandfunk Kultur, 21/2/2019, Franziska Stürz

“Titus Engel holds the numerous threads and lines of the score together perfectly; the ensemble is simply phenomenal.“

BR Klassik, 22/2/2019, Jörn Florian Fuchs

“Conductor Titus Engel was a deft helmsman as he guided the musicians of the DRP joyfully through the ups and downs of the extensive score.“

Saarbrücker Zeitung, 29/4/2018, Helmut Fackler

On Bluebeard's Castle (Staatsoper Stuttgart)
“Titus Engel renders the impenetrable bright and clear while still allowing the music to radiate into fullness. Excellent precision coupled with a gripping sensuality.“

Stuttgarter Zeitung, 3/11/2018, Susanne Benda