“The ingenuities of the Basel production would count for little were it not so well conducted… Thomas Wise’s musical direction was idiomatic and pointed; he knew how to keep orchestra and chorus coordinated and precise…”
-David Savran, Kurt Weill Newsletter, Spring 2023, writing about Kurt Weill’s “Lady in the Dark” at Theater Basel
Conductor and Musical Director of the Opera Department, Theater Basel
Recent highlights include the world premiere of Jerrick Bischoff's "Andersen's Erzählungen" (book and lyrics by Jan Dvorak, directed by Phillip Stölzl) with the Basel Sinfonietta at Theater Basel, "Rhapsody in Blue" in Basel and Andermatt, and a gala concert for Edda Moser at Teatro Poliziano in Montepulciano.
Highlights of the 2023-24 season include the world premiere of Herbert Grönemeyer's new musical comedy "Pferd Frisst Hut" with the Basel Symphony Orchestra (staging Herbert Fritsch), the revival of "Rigoletto" (staging Vincent Huguet), repertoire performances of "Carmen" (staging Constanza Macras), all at Theater Basel, as well as a concert at the Kurt-Weill-Fest in Dessau.
Opera repertoire
Ades – Powder Her Face
Beethoven – Fidelio
Bellini – La Sonnambula
Benatzky – Im Weißen Rössl
Berg – Lulu, Wozzeck
Berio – La Vera Storia
Bernstein – Candide
Bizet – Carmen
Bizet – Les Pecheurs des Perles
Bock – Fiddler on the Roof
Britten – A Midsummernight´s Dream
Delibes – Lakmé
Donizetti – Don Pasquale, L´Elisir d´Amore, Lucia di Lammermoor
Dvorak – Rusalka
Gluck – Orfée et Euridice
Gounod – Faust
Händel – Alcina, Belshazzar, Jephtha
Händel – Rinaldo
Hartmann – Simplicius Simplicissimus
Henze – We come to the River
Hindemith – Cardillac, Trilogie* (Mord, Hoffnung der Frauen, Sancta Susanna,Das Nusch-Nuschi)
Humperdinck – Hänsel und Gretel
J. Strauss – Die Fledermaus
Janacek – Katja Kabanová
Kagel – Der Mündliche Verrat
Lortzing – Der Wildschütz
Massenet – Thaiis
Milhaud – À propos de bottes, Un peu d’exercice
Mozart – Cosí fan tutte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Don Giovanni, Idomeneo
La Finta Giardiniera, Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte
Poulenc – Dialogues des Carmelites
Prokofiev – Die Liebe zu den Drei Orangen
Puccini – La Bohème, Madame Butterfly, Tosca
Puccini – Manon Lescaut, Turandot
Rossini – Il Barbiere di Seviglia*, L´Italiana in Algeri
R. Strauss – Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Salome
Schleiermacher – Kokain
Schreker – Der Ferne Klang
Strawinsky – The Rake´s Progress
Tschaikowsky – Evgeny Onegin, Pique Dame
Verdi – Giovanna d´Arco
Verdi- Un Ballo in Maschera, Don Carlo, La Forza del
Destino, Otello, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Jerusalem
Vivaldi: Orlando
Wagner – Lohengrin, Parsifal,Tannhäuser
Wagner – Tristan und Isolde
Weber – Der Freischütz
Weill – Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny
Weill - Lady in the Dark
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