Yves Abel
Conductor
BIOGRAPHY
Starting in 2021, he has been appointed Principal Conductor of the San Diego Opera.
A frequent guest with the world’s great opera companies, Yves Abel has conducted performances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; La Scala, Milan; the Metropolitan Opera, New York; Lyric Opera of Chicago; San Francisco Opera; Seattle Opera; Glyndebourne Festival; Bayerische Staatsoper; Opéra National de Paris; Netherlands Opera; Grand Théatre de Génève; Teatro San Carlo, Naples; Teatro Communale Bologna; New National Theatre, Tokyo; Welsh National Opera and Opera North.
He has conducted new productions in Munich (I Capuleti e i Montecchi), Geneva (Les Vêpres Siciliennes), Barcelona (Madama Butterfly), Bilbao (Norma), Toulouse (Lalo’s Le Roi d’Ys and Les contes d'Hoffmann), Lisbon (Il turco in Italia), Naples (Gounod’s Faust), Dallas (Ermione), Seattle (Il Trovatore and Heggie’s The End of Affair), Monte Carlo Opera (Il Turco in Italia) and Santa Fe (Così fan tutte), and at the festivals of Pesaro, Caramoor, the Menuhin festival in Gstaad, and the Spoleto festival in Charleston and Spoleto, Italy.
As Principal Guest Conductor of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin from 2005 to 2011, he conducted new productions of Don Pasquale, Simon Boccanegra, d’Albert’s Tiefland and Carmen, as well as performances of Le nozze di Figaro, La traviata, Dialogues des Carmélites, La bohème and Carmina Burana.
He is a frequent guest at the Vienna Staatsoper where his repertoire includes La fille du Régiment, L’Elisir d’amore, Carmen, Madama Butterfly, Simon Boccanegra, Un ballo in Maschera, Il Barbiere di Siviglia and L'italiana in Algeri.
This summer (2020) he makes his debut at the Choregies d'Orange conducting Samson et Dalila with Roberto Alagna, and at Torre del Lago's Puccini Festival with Madama Butterfly.
Next season, in addition to various concert series with NWD Philharmonie, he will conduct performances of "L'Elisir d'Amore" at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
He then makes his debut as Principal Conductor at the San Diego Opera.
In concerts he has performed with the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra at the Tivoli Festival, the RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Dublin, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Orchèstre du Capitole de Toulouse, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, and the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma. He has also conducted the Toronto Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Netherlands Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Orchèstre National de Lyon, Orchestra of St. Luke's New York, the Royal Liverpool, the Haydn Orchestra in Bolzano and the orchestras of Genoa, Naples, and Palermo among others.
A Franco-Canadian, he has a particular affinity with the French repertoire and has won significant critical acclaim for his achievements as founder and Music Director of L'Opéra Francais de New York, with whom he has regenerated rare French operas and also performed the world premiere of Dusapin’s To be Sung. Since 1994, the company has performed regularly to capacity audiences at the Lincoln Center.
His recordings include Thaïs with Renée Fleming and Werther with Andrea Bocelli (Decca), Madama Butterfly with the Philharmonia Orchestra (Chandos), and two discs of French arias, one with Susan Graham and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Erato) and the other with Patricia Petibon and the Orchestra of the Opera National de Lyon (Decca). His most recent recording, ‘Romantique’, is a disc of romantic arias with Elīna Garanča on Deutsche Grammophon.
In 2009 he was awarded the title Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government.
May 2014