ANDREA BATTISTONI
Conductor
Born in Verona in 1987 Andrea Battistoni is one of the rising young talents at an international level.
In January 2013 he was appointed First Guest Conductor at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa with a three-year engagement for two operas and two symphonic productions a year.
From May 2015 he will be nominated the new Principal Guest Conductor of Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.
His reputation is as one of the most important conductors of his generation.
Noteworthy steps of his career include: Teatro alla Scala, Teatro Regio in Turin, Teatro Carlo Felice, La Fenice in Venice, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Stockholm Opera House, Arena di Verona among others as well as some of the most renowned Orchestras in the world, such as the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and many others.
His future programs include Deutsche Oper Berlin, Arena di Verona, Teatro Regio in Turin, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Tokyo, NCPA in Beijing and the Australia Opera in Sydney.
He debuted in 2010 with La Bohème at the Teatro Filarmonico whilst in 2011 he led two symphonic concerts as well as Verdi’s Rigoletto; he returned in 2012 to conduct Attila.
At the Arena di Verona he debuted in 2011 with Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, whilst in 2012 he conducted Puccini’s Turandot. In 2013 he conducted La Traviata and participated in the Gala Verdi; in 2014 he was on the Arena’s podium for Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, the Festival’s inaugural opera, and Orff’s Carmina Burana.
He returns to the Arena for the Gala on 1st June The Show is about to begin presented by Paolo Bonolis, and to conduct Aida e Carmina Burana for the 93rd Arena Opera Festival 2015.
Omer Meir Wellber
Conductor
Omer Meir Wellber was born in Be’er Sheva in 1981 and is regarded today as one of Israel’s most talented young conductors. Since 2011 he has been General Music Director of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia succeeding Lorin Maazel. He is not only a regular guest conductor at the Israeli Opera, but has also been, since 2009, the Music Director of the Raanana Symphonette Orchestra Israel. Wellber, who now lives in Italy, also appears regularly at the opera houses in Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Venice, Milan and Verona.
Between 2008 and 2010 he assisted Daniel Barenboim at the Berliner Staatsoper Unter den Linden and at La Scala in Milan. To great public and critical acclaim he conducted Aida when La Scala performed at the Israeli Opera. This was followed by Bizet’s Carmen at the Staatsoper Berlin, a new production of Strauss’s Daphne received with great applause at the Semperoper in Dresden, Puccini’s Tosca at the Berliner Staatsoper, and symphony concerts in Verona and at La Fenice in Venice. During the 2011/2012 season he conducted Verdi’s Rigoletto to open a three-year project with the trilogia popolare at the Vienna Festival, La Traviata at the Berliner Staatsoper, Tosca in Valencia, Carmen and L’Elisir d’Amore in Venice, La Traviata at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and various symphony concerts with the Orchestre de Paris, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the RAI Turin, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hannover, and the hr-Sinfonieorchester in Frankfurt. Following Verdi’s Macbeth in Verona, and Rigoletto, Il Barbiere di Siviglia and I due Foscari with Plácido Domingo in Valencia, his further engagements include premieres of Verdi’s Il Trovatore at the Vienna Festival, Verdi’s Otello in Tel Aviv, Così fan tutte to open a Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy in Dresden, where he has more engagements in the future, and some symphony concerts with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Omer Meir Wellber can be heard on DVD in Mariusz Trelinski’s production of Eugene Onegin in Valencia (C Major). He is engaged in educational activities for young musicians and is an Ambassador for the humanitarian non for profit international organization Save a child’s heart, headquartered in Israel.
After his debut at the Teatro Filarmonico di Verona for the 2009 Symphonic Season he returned in 2012 with Verdi’s Macbeth and the Gala Concert Aspettando il 2013; in 2013 he conducted Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and the Gala concert of 31st December Goodbye 2013.
He returned for the 2014-2015 symphonic season to conduct the first performance at the Teatro Ristori and the seventh concert at the Teatro Filarmonico.
At the Arena di Verona he debuted in 2013 conducting the Fura dels Baus’ staging of Aida.
He returns for the 2015 Festival to conduct Aida directed by Franco Zeffirelli and the Carmen Gala Concert.
DANIEL OREN
Conductor
With a natural talent, Daniel Oren developed his own particular interest for the Opera by the great Leonard Bernstein who chose him in 1968, just thirteen years old, as lead vocalist in his Chichester Psalms's for the inauguration of Israel Television; it was actually his mother who started the young Daniel off, still at an early age, with a complete musical education studying not only the piano and the cello, but singing and harmony. M° Oren then perfected his studies in Europe, devoting himself almost exclusively to conducting, taking part and winning, in 1975, the prestigious competition "Herbert von Karajan" for young conductors: from that moment the young artist began an international career.
After debuting in the United States, his reputation also consolidated in Italy: in fact he became a stable conductor in Rome and, subsequently, at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste (where he was recently music director), at the San Carlo Theatre in Naples and at the Carlo Felice in Genova. Even in recent years he has continued to successfully manage in the major Italian theatres (Florence, Parma, Turin and Venice), cultivating close relationships with the most influential European and American theatres, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Covent Garden in London, the Staatsoper in Vienna, the Colon in Buenos Aires, Tokyo Opera, the Opera Houses in Houston, Dallas, San Francisco and the Opera Bastille in Paris where he had great success with Leo Nucci, Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu. Next to his love for Opera, with a repertoire that embraces the most important of that Italian, Oren unites a passion for symphonic music with that for conducting major orchestras such as the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome (conducted for the first time in 1978), Maggio Musicale Fiorentino’s Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the radio orchestras of Monaco, Cologne, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Berlin, among many others. His participation in Verdi's Nabucco inaugural season of the New Israeli Opera in December 1994 represented a particularly significant moment in his career: this musical event has managed to coincide his passion for the world of opera with the love for his homeland. Oren as a musician believes that the music is the best vehicle for peace, tolerance, and the only language that unites us all. He is Artist Director of Teatro Verdi in Salerno where he often conducts during the opera season. He’s also regular guest in Paris, at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as well as in Tel Aviv, Verona, Florence, Madrid, Cologne and Barcelona.
He has been at the Teatro Filarmonico di Verona with 6 concerts from 1984 to 2004. At the Arena di Verona he debuted conducting Puccini’s Tosca in 1984 and since then he has been on the Veronese podium every year becoming one of the most present directors in the Arena’s programmes; not only for the Verdi titles with his 15 editions of Aida from 1985 to 2013, 8 of Nabucco in 1989, Otello in 1994, Un Ballo in maschera in 1998 and Il Trovatore in 2001, but also of 3 editions of the Puccini opera Tosca (as well as those from 1984, 1990 and 2006), Madama Butterfly in 2004, La Bohème in 2005, Turandot in 1995 and in 2009 and again with Bizet’s Carmen in 1995, 1996 and 2008 and Mozart’s Don Giovanni in 2012; in 2013 he conducted the Gala Domingo-Operalia; in 2014 he conducted Turandot and the Gala evening Plácido Domingo sings Verdi.
He returns for the Arena di Verona Opera Festival 2015 to conduct Aida and Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.