Song recital
Piotr Beczala

Piotr Beczała is among the most sought-after tenors of our time. Since his debut at the Met in 2006 as Duca ("Rigoletto"), he has also sung Lenski ("Eugene Onegin"), the Prince ("Rusalka"), Edgardo, Rodolfo, Vaudémont ("Iolanta"), Riccardo, Gounod’s Roméo, Faust, Maurizio ("Adriana Lecouvreur") and Werther there, as well as Des Grieux ("Manon"). His interpretation of Duca earned him the Echo Klassik award as Singer of the Year in 2014. At La Scala in Milan, he sang Duca, Rodolfo and Alfredo ("La traviata"). At the Salzburg Festival, where he debuted in 1997 as Tamino, he celebrated successes as Roméo, the Prince, Rodolfo and Faust, as well as in concert performances of Iolanta and Werther. He is also in demand worldwide as a concert and lieder singer. Piotr Beczała, who comes from Poland and has been a Swiss citizen since 2012, studied at the Music Academy in Katowice. He was a long-standing ensemble member at the Zurich Opera House. In addition to a number of DVDs, among others 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 debuted as Lohengrin alongside Anna Netrebko at the Semperoper Dresden and sang the role again, among others, in Zurich in 2017, at the Bayreuth Festival in 2018, at the Vienna State Opera in 2020, as well as in Baden-Baden in 2026. In Zurich, he was most recently seen as Prince Sou-Chong in "The Land of Smiles", as Werther, as Chevalier des Grieux in "Manon", in a lieder recital, at an operetta gala and as Calàf in "Turandot". In this season, he could be heard, among others, as Andrea Chénier at the Met, as Radamès in "Aida" in Paris, as well as the Prince in "Rusalka" and Don José in "Carmen" at the Vienna State Opera. At the Bavarian State Opera, he sang Manrico in "Il trovatore" as well as 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.