LAURENT BRUNNER
President
Direc
tor of Opéra Royal / Château de Versailles Spectacles.
Since September 2007, Laurent Brunner is director of Château de Versailles Spectacles. He has developed the company significantly in the last ten years, increasing the number of paying
visitors by 100% with 1.600.000 tickets in 2016, reopening the Opera Royal, which has been offering a season of around 80 performances every year since 2009 and producing the major Versailles contemporary art exhibitions: from Jeff Koons in 2008 to Olafur Eliasson in 2016.
The musical season offers concerts and operas with stars of classical music (Cecilia Bartoli, Philippe Jaroussky, Jordi Savall, John Eliot Gardiner, Raphael Pichon, William Christie….) in the most prestigious venues of the chateau: the Opera Royal, the Chapel and Hall of Mirrors.
Château de Versailles de Spectacles today is a company with an annual budget of 16M€ which receives no subsidies from the government. It has 30 permanent employees and 400 summer season staff.
Born in Lorraine in the east of France, Laurent Brunner grew up in Verdun, a landmark city where history and the French-German axis are deeply rooted. He chose Strasbourg for his history and history of art studies. This is where he discovered ancient music and the opera and he launched a festival in Verdun in 1990. Its success led him to the organization of a full season in 1991 and ultimately to a merger with the Theatre Municipal, which became an official state supported stage in 1992.
In 1996, Laurent Brunner became director of the Scène Nationale de Forbach et de l’Est Mosellan (national stage of Forbach and East Moselle), covering 23 cities of the Lorraine coal basin, which he modernised and renamed Le Carreau (The Pithead). The Scène Nationale set up camp in a former pithead (Carreau Wendel in Petite Rosselle) to present shows and performances, strongly developing the offer of classic music in very diverse settings. He developed a project for Mission 2000 en France, with the renovation of an industrial building for the exhibition L’Aventure du travail (The Adventure of Work), coproduced by the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie (Paris) and the Centro de Cultura Contemporanea (Barcelona), with a budget of 3 million euros and 5 million euros renovation works. In 2002 he became also director of the Festival Perspectives in Saarbrücken (Germany).
In May 2002, he joined the cabinet of the French Minister for Culture Jean Jacques Aillagon, as the minister’s technical adviser for performing arts. He was then appointed Cultural Attaché to the French embassy in Berlin (Germany), before moving to Versailles.
Andrea Cigni
Andrea Cigni is from Tuscany and graduated at Dams in Bologna. He acquired great expertise in drama, mime, diction, dance and body expression.
He has been an actor, a mime and an assistant director in several plays and with renown directors such as Pier Luigi Pizzi, Giancarlo Cobelli, Yannis Kokkos, Alberto Fassini, Beni Montresor and Henning Brockhaus.
After directing several theatrical pieces, in 2006, Cigni debuted as an opera director in Cremona in Antonio Vivaldi’s Andromeda Liberata.
In May 2007, he staged Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. From then, Cigni has worked on the staging of about 40 operas all over the world, from the USA to Kazakhstan. His next dates will be at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo with Nabucco, at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb with Madama Butterfly, in Palma de Mallorca with Puccini’s Bohème and in Jakarta with Tosca.
Andrea Cigni has been the Director of the Claudio Monteverdi Conservatory in Cremona, where he still teaches Drama, History of Theatre, Musical Dramaturgy, Acting, Law and Management of Entertainment, and Communication Techniques.
In 2014-2016, Cigni was the Artistic Director of the Orizzonti Festival in Chiusi (SI) as for new pieces in performing arts.
He has been the Artistic Secretary of the opera sector at the Teatro Grande in Brescia.
At present, he is the Superintendent and Artistic Director of the Teatro Ponchielli in Cremona.
Sebastian F. Schwarz
Born in Rostock, Germany, in 1974, Sebastian F. Schwarz took the equivalent to B.A. “sehr gut” in Musicology from Freie Universität Berlin, carried out vocal studies at Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice, Italy, and graduated “summa cum laude” in Theatre Administration and Entertainment Artistic Techniques at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. Later he collaborated with the Bayreuther Festival and dealt with the organization of several masterclasses in Leadership and Management Development in Vienna and in Strategic Leadership in England.
He started his professional career in 1991 at the Volkstheater in Rostock, at the Dramaturgy department and as a Stage Manager; then he engaged in community service within a program of humanitarian aid in Moscow and Voronezh, and worked as the External Consultant for Public Relations at the Helikon Opera House in Moscow.
In 1998, Schwarz moved to Venice, where he was a language coach for German, English and Russian productions at the Teatro La Fenice. In 2002, he was entrusted with the management of the opera department at Walter Beloch Artists Management. In 2004, he worked for the Company Management at Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland and, in 2007, he was appointed Assistant to the Director of Opera at Hamburgische Staatsoper in Germany.
In 2010, at the Innsbrucker Festwochen für Alte Musik, he contributed to the foundation of the Pietro Antonio Cesti International Voice Competition for Baroque Opera, of which he was the Artistic Director and head of the jury until 2016.
In 2015, he started his career as university professor at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts and from current year, he has also taught at Mozarteum University in Salzburg.
He is regularly invited to teach in masterclasses and workshops held by Plácido Domingo, Galina Vishnevskaja and Jury Bashmet.
From 2008 to 2016, Schwarz was the Director of Artistic Administration and Casting Manager of the Theater an der Wien; moreover, from 2012 to 2016, he has also been the Artistic Director of the Kammeroper Wien and founder of the Young Artist Program at the Theater an der Wien (JET).
From 2016 to 2018 he held the position as Superintendent and Artistic Director of the Glyndebourne Festival, where his programming was a great success, particularly the new production Hipermestra by Francesco Cavalli, directed by Graham Vick, the world premiere of Hamlet by Brett Dean, under the direction of Vladimir Jurowski, and Vanessa by Samuel Barber staged by Keith Warner and directed by Jakůb Hruša. In 2018, he created and presided over the Glyndebourne Opera Cup, an international opera voice competition. He was also engaged in the organization of the program and tours of the festival up to 2021.
He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Opera Europa and of the National Opera Studio in London. Since 2017, he has been sitting in the Council of the Europäischen Musiktheater – akademie (European Academy of Musical Theatre). From 2018, he has been a member of the International Richard Strauss Society and from 2019 of the International Richard Wagner Society.
As an enthusiast learner of languages, he fluently speaks German, English, Russian, Italian, Czech, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
In 2015 the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, awarded him the title of Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy.
From 24 July 2019 to 11 September 2020, he was the General Manager of the Teatro Regio Torino, as well as the Artistic Director, a position he is still holding after the appointment of Rosanna Purchia as Extraordinary Commissioner.
Schwarz is also the Artistic Director of the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca and of the Accademia del belcanto “Rodolfo Celletti”.
Stéphane Fuget
Stéphane Fuget is a harpsichordist, pianist and conductor.
He studied piano with Catherine Collard and Jean-Claude Pennetier, harpsichord with Christophe Rousset and Pierre Hantaï.
He was awarded a first prize for harpsichord and continuo at the Paris CNSM. He is a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and laureate of the 2001 International Harpsichord Competition in Bruges.
Stéphane Fuget spent his early professional years devoted to his career as a vocal coach in the world’s greatest opera houses. Alongside conductors such as Christophe Rousset, Jean-Christophe Spinosi and Marc Minkovski, he worked on the greatest international stages: Staatsoper and Theater an der Wien (Vienna), DNO (Amsterdam), Liceu (Barcelona), La Monnaie (Brussels), Leipzig Opera, Royal Theatre of Drottningholm (Sweden), Lotte Concert Hall (Seoul), Palais Garnier, Opéra Bastille, Châtelet, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (Paris), Capitole (Toulouse), Strasbourg Opera, Bordeaux, Rennes, Lille, Nancy, Montpellier, etc. Over the years this led to close ties with some of the world’s most prestigious artists: Anne-Sophie von Otter, Jennifer Larmore, Véronique Gens, Sandrine Piau, Gaële Arquez, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Kurt Streit, Julian Prégardien, Jeremy Ovenden, Nathan Berg, Max Emanuel Cencic, Philippe Jaroussky…
Sophie Von Otter requested his presence as a specialist of French Baroque music for a production of Charpentier’s Médée at Frankfurt Opera.
At the same time, he developed his career as a guest conductor. In this capacity he directed Emmanuelle Haïm’s Le Concert d’Astrée at Lille Opera, The Magic Flute with Opelescences ensemble, Rameau’s Les Paladins with the Joy Ballet Orchestra in Tokyo, Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres with Versailles Opera Royal orchestra…
Inspired by his desire to work with young artists, he developed and transformed the vocal coaching and baroque opera classes at the CRR conservatoire in Paris, the only classes of their kind in France. In this way he was able to hone and develop his vision of baroque declamation and ornamentation in several productions: The Coronation of Poppea and Ulysses by Monteverdi, Semele and Rodelinda by Handel, La Calisto by Cavalli, Titus by Cesti, Psyché by Lully, Orfeo by Rossi, Le Jugement de Midas by Gretry, Euridice by Peri and the European revival of Ariane et Bacchus by Marais….
After many years researching repertoire and treatises, Stéphane Fuget, ever inquisitive and convinced that a new era of historical interpretation was dawning, decided to create his own ensemble, Les Epopées. He and his company offer a decidedly new vision of baroque interpretation.
Antonio Greco
Antonio Greco graduated in Piano, Choral Music and Renaissance Polyphony.
He is currently teaching Choral Exercises at the ISSM “Verdi” in Ravenna.
In 1993, Greco founded the Costanzo Porta Choir and in 2004, the Cremona Antiqua Orchestra, an ensemble using, original instruments, which he has conducted in concerts at the most important Italian and European festivals.
He was Assistant Conductor of Sir John Eliot Gardiner and a harpsichordist with the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists in many tours around the world.
Since 2018, Greco has cooperated as a Choirmaster with Riccardo Muti, with whom he staged Verdi’s Macbeth, Nabucco, Stabat Mater and Te Deum (in December he is going to work on Messa da Requiem) and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (Cherubini Youth Orchestra, Costanzo Porta Choir/Cremona Antiqua).
He has been the Choirmaster of the Opera Lombardia, Opéra de Lausanne and “Luigi Cherubini” Choir.
Greco has given masterclasses in the Baroque repertoire at the Accademia “Celletti” in Martina Franca, Moscow Čajkovskij Conservatory, Scuola dell’Opera in Bologna, Musica Antica a Palazzo in Genova, Monteverdi Festival in Cremona, as well as masterclasses in Choir Conducting at the ASAC Veneto and Fondazione Guido d’Arezzo.
As a conductor, he has worked with the Orchestra Regionale Toscana, Orchestra Luigi Cherubini, Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia, OIDI Festival Baroque Ensemble, Orchestra della Magna Grecia, Cremona Antiqua, Orchestra “1813” del Teatro Sociale in Como and Baroque Opera Concert in Tokyo.
In 2021, he was Music Director at the Il Cantiere di Montepulciano.
In the same year, he was appointed Senior Music Director at the Monteverdi Festival in Cremona, of which his Cremona Antiqua Choir and Orchestra have become permanent ensembles.
Every year, Greco stages the greatest Monteverdi’s masterpieces: Orfeo in 2021, (next year, L’incoronazione di Poppea), while 2022 was dedicated to the Vespro della Beata Vergine, which he conducted in Cremona, Mantova, Milan and Perugia. Last week, he conducted the Lyatoshynsky Chamber Choir at the National Philharmonic of Ukraine in Kyiv within a project of brotherhood and sharing between the two populations.