Song recital
Piotr Beczala

Piotr Beczała is one of the most sought-after tenors of our time. Since his debut at the Met in 2006 as the Duke ("Rigoletto"), he has also sung there the roles of Lenski ("Eugene Onegin"), the Prince ("Rusalka"), Edgardo, Rodolfo, Vaudémont ("Iolanta"), Riccardo, Gounod’s Roméo, Faust, Maurizio ("Adriana Lecouvreur"), Werther, and Des Grieux ("Manon"). His interpretation of the Duke earned him the Echo Klassik Award for Singer of the Year in 2014. At La Scala in Milan, he has sung the Duke, Rodolfo, and Alfredo ("La traviata"). At the Salzburg Festival, where he made his debut in 1997 as Tamino, he has celebrated major successes as Roméo, the Prince, Rodolfo, Faust, and in concert performances of "Iolanta" and "Werther". He is also in demand worldwide as a concert and recital singer. Piotr Beczała, who comes from Poland and has been a Swiss citizen since 2012, studied at the Academy of Music in Katowice. He was a long-standing ensemble member at the Zurich Opera House. In addition to a number of DVDs, including from the Zurich Opera House, his discography includes solo albums such as "Heart’s Delight: The Songs of Richard Tauber", "The French Collection", "Salut", "Verdi", and "Slavic Opera Arias". At the International Opera Awards 2018, he was named Singer of the Year. In 2016, he made his debut as Lohengrin alongside Anna Netrebko at the Semperoper Dresden and has since sung the role again in Zurich (2017), at the Bayreuth Festival (2018), at the Vienna State Opera (2020), and in Baden-Baden (2026). In Zurich, he was most recently seen as Prince Sou-Chong in "Das Land des Lächelns", as Werther, as Chevalier des Grieux in "Manon", in a song recital, in an operetta gala, and as Calàf in "Turandot". In the current season, he has appeared as Andrea Chénier at the Met, as Radamès in "Aida" in Paris, as the Prince in "Rusalka", and as Don José in "Carmen" at the Vienna State Opera. At the Bavarian State Opera, he has sung Manrico in "Il trovatore" and Faust this season.

Carrie-Ann Matheson stammt aus Kanada. 2014 wurde sie von Fabio Luisi als Dirigentin und Korrepetitorin ans Opern­haus Zürich engagiert. Davor arbeitete sie als Assistenz-Di­ri­­gentin an der New Yorker Met und war als Pianistin, Souffleuse und Korrepetitorin festes Mitglied des künstlerischen Personals der Met. Sie hat Dirigenten wie Fabio Lui­si, James Levine, Daniel Baren­boim, Daniele Gatti, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Gianandrea Noseda u. a. assistiert. Ihr Debüt als Dirigentin gab sie am Opernhaus Zürich 2015 und hat hier u.a. Mozarts La finta giardiniera, Oscar Stras­noys Fälle, Jonathan Doves Das verzau­ber­te Schwein, Jörn Arneckes Ronja Räubertochter und Glucks Iphigénie en Tauride dirigiert. Be­sonderes Anliegen ist ihr die Förderung der jungen Sängergeneration. An der Met war sie viele Jahre feste Korrepetitorin des Lindemann Young Artist De­ve­lop­ment Program. Ab 2017 leitete sie als Dirigentin regelmässig die Gala-Konzerte des Internationalen Opernstudios am Opernhaus Zürich. Als Liedpianistin ist sie mit berühmten Sängerinnen und Sängern aufgetreten, u. a. mit Rolando Villa­zón, Benjamin Bernheim, Jonas Kaufmann, Piotr Beczala, Joyce DiDonato, Diana Damrau, Thomas Hampson, Barbara Bonney und Marilyn Horne. Kammermusik-Auftritte absolvierte sie mit Mitgliedern des New York Phil­harmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra und der Philharmonia Zürich. Als Korrepetitorin/Dirigentin arbeitete sie für die Salzburger Festspiele, das Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival, das Lyric Opera of Chicago Ryan Opera Center, die Los Angeles Opera und das Mariinsky Atkins Young Artist Program. Seit 2021 ist sie künstlerische Leiterin des San Francisco Opera Center an der San Francisco Opera.