Alexander Joel

The highlight for the Season 2011/2012 include a premiere of "Forza del Destino" with Michael Thalheimer at the Vlaamse opera, Premieres of Tristan and Isolde, Luisa Miller, Marriage of Figaro and Turandot at the Staatstheater Braunschweig, as well as revivals of Rigoletto and Traviata at the Semper Oper Dresden, Don Carlos at the Staatsoper Hamburg and Tosca at the Deutsche oper Berlin. On the concert podium, he will conduct 9 full concert programmes spanning a large repertoire ranging from Mozart to Mahler.

In the last 3 seasons, he has a been a regular guest conductor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (Tosca, La Boheme), the Staatsoper Hamburg (La Boheme, Le Nozze di Figaro, Carmen and Madama Butterfly), the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden (La Boheme, Macbeth, Barbiere di Siviglia, Faust, and Fledermaus), the opera house Cologne (La Boheme), and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Tosca, La Boheme, Nabucco, Zauberflöte, Turco in Italia Premiere, Ballo in maschera). He also conducted 2 highly acclaimed Premieres at the Vlaamse opera, Richard Strauss’s Frau ohne Schatten (Stage Director:Arturo Marelli) and Don Carlos (Stage Director: Peter Konwitchny), as well as a premiere at the Staatsoper Dresden of Faust.

His future plans for 2012/2013 include his debut with La Boheme in Covent Garden, as well as conduct new productions of Madama Butterfly at the Staatsoper Hamburg and the Grand Theatre de Genève. In 2013/2014, he has been invited by Keith Warner to conduct a new Production of Verdi’s Macbeth in Copenhagen, a new Production of Triticco at the Israel national opera in Tel Aviv, as well as the premiere of Otello at the Teatro Municipal in Santiago di Chile.

Alexander Joel has been guesting regularly in Opera houses such as the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich (where he conducted Entführung aus dem Serail and Fledermaus for 3 seasons in a row), at the Finnish National Opera Helsinki, the Teatro Regio di Parma, the Vlaamse Opera, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Hamburgische Staatsoper, the Tokyo New national Theatre, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Hamburg Staatsoper, the Opera in Cologne, the Teatro Municipal di Santiago di Chile and the Semper Oper Dresden.

Alexander Joel has been Generalmuskdirektor at the Staatstheater Braunschweig since the 2007/2008 Season.

Alexander Joel also regularly conducts numerous renowned orchestras on the concert podium, including such orchestras as the DSO Berlin, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Duisburger Philharmoniker the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Gürzenich Orchester Köln, MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, RSO Wien, Bruckner Orchester Linz, Orchestre de Nancy. He has worked with prominent stage-directors such as Nicolas Joel, Marco Arturo Marelli, Peter Konwitschny and Keith Warner as well as soloists such as Yuri Bashmet, Julian Rachlin, Mischa Maisky, Rudolf Buchbinder, and Sabine Meyer, and Singers such as Juan Diego Florez, Sir Thomas Allen, Samuel Ramey, Violetta Urmana, Diana Damrau or Catherine Malfitano.

Alexander Joel was first Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein from the 2001/02 season till the 2006/2007 season, where he conducted a very large repertoire of over 35 different operas as well as 9 premieres. At the age of 24 he gave his debut at the Opera in Nürnberg and his first steady engagements led him to Kapellmeister positions at the Stadttheater Baden, the Stadttheater Klagenfurt and at the Wiener Volksoper.

In 1990, Alexander Joel began studying piano (and later also composition) at the Vienna Academy of Music, before starting his conducting studies in 1991 at the Vienna Conservatory of Music (under Prof. Mark and Prof. Schwarz), where he graduated with Honours in 1996. He was prize winner at European Conducting Competition in Spoleto (Italy) that same year. During his studies, he attended numerous master-classes (including the 1996 conducting master-classes in Tanglewood). After his studies, he worked as an assistant to Julius Rudel, Muhai Tang (Royal Opera Stockholm) and Gustav Kuhn.