Biography

Sebastian Weigle is currently Music Director of Frankfurt Opera, a post he held since 2008. In 2019 he was also appointed Chief Conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo.
He was born in 1961 in Berlin. After studying French Horn, Piano and Conducting at The Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler”, he was appointed Principal Horn of the Berlin Staatskapelle in 1982. During the coming years conducting became gradually more recognized and he was appointed Kapellmeister and assistant to Daniel Barenboim. In 1990 debut with “Neues Berliner Kammerorchester“, as well as conductor and soloist with Salzburg Festival. As Staatskapellmeister in Berlin during the years 1997 to 2002 he gained more valuable conducting experience by working on a wide range of operatic reperetoire. Weigle made his debut with Oper Frankfurt in the 2002/2003 season with performances of “Salome” and also with a widely praised production of “Die Frau ohne Schatten” for which he received the OPERNWELT award “Conductor of the year”. From 2004 till 2009 he was Director Musical at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. Whilst there, critics again voted him “Conductor of the year” for his interpretations of “Parsifal” in 2005, “Die tote Stadt” in 2006 and “Tristan und Isolde” in 2010.

Operatic guest conducting engagements in Germany have taken Sebastian Weigle to the Deutsche Oper Berlin, statesoperas in Munich, Dresden and Hamburg. Internationally he conducted the Metropolitan Opera New York, Vienna, Covent Garden, Zurich, Cincinatti and Sydney, Australia. In addition he has conducted symphonic concerts with Staatskapellen Berlin, Dresden and Weimar, Dresden Philharmonic, Wiener Symphoniker, the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. Weigle was music director at Bayreuth Festival, for “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” for 5 consecutive seasons until 2011. 2015 he conducted the premiere of “Der Freischütz” at Berlin Staatsoper, then travelled to Bucharest with Munich Statsoper to conduct the first Romanian performance ever of “Elektra”, followed by his debut with Wiener Symphoniker. In 2017 Sebastian Weigle returned to the Metropolitan Opera New York to conduct “Fidelio”, as well as the highly acclaimed new production of “Der Rosenkavalier”. He then went to Berlin for the reopening of Staatsoper Unter den Linden with a new production of  “Hänsel und Gretel”. 2018 took him again to Wiener Staatsoper to do “Lohengrin” and “Der Freischütz” followed by his debut of a new production of “Hänsel und Gretel” at Covent Garden. Since his appointment with the Yomiuru Nippon Symphony Orchestra he returnes regularly to conduct opera and symphonic concerts in Japan.
Future plans will take him again to the Metropolitan Opera, to Vienna Staatsoper and Covent Garden.

CD and DVD recordings are available with works of Beethoven, Mozart and Rott as well as numerous opera productions with Oper Frankfurt und his Opern-and Museumsorchester. Furthermore Oehms Classics released a recording of a “Cycle of Symphonic Poetry” by Richard Strauss.