Philippe Jordan

Coming from an artistic Swiss family, Philippe Jordan’s career has taken him to the world’s major opera houses, festivals, and orchestras, and he is regarded as one of the most prominent and important conductors of our time.

He has been music director of the Wiener Staatsoper since September 2020. Under his leadership, the “Haus am Ring” has presented new productions of Madama Butterfly, Parsifal, Macbeth, Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Tristan und Isolde, Salome, Il Trittico, and a complete new Da Ponte cycle by Mozart. In the 2024-25 season, he led new productions of Don Carlo and Tannhäuser, as well as revivals of the Da Ponte cycle and Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Also in the 2024-25 season, Jordan conducted Parsifal at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin and returned to the Salzburger Festspiele to revive Macbeth. His symphonic appearances included a return to the Wiener Symphoniker for Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, followed by engagements with the Orchestre National de France, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Münchner Philharmoniker, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as debuts with the WDR Sinfonieorchester and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo.

Jordan’s career on the podium began as Kapellmeister at Germany’s Stadttheater Ulm and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. From 2001 to 2004, he served as principal conductor of the Graz Opera and the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra, during which time he also debuted at several of the world’s leading opera houses and festivals, including New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Teatro alla Scala, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Wiener Staatsoper, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, and the festivals of Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne, and Salzburg. From 2006 to 2010, he returned to the Berlin State Opera as principal guest conductor. In the summer of 2012, he debuted at the Bayreuth Festival with Parsifal, returning in 2017 for Bayreuth’s new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which he conducted in subsequent years.

Jordan served as music director of the Opéra National de Paris from 2009 to 2021, where he conducted numerous premieres and revivals, including Moses und Aron, La Damnation de Faust, Der Rosenkavalier, Samson et Dalila, Lohengrin, Don Carlos in its original French version, Les Troyens, Don Giovanni, a new production of Borodin’s Prince Igor, and Wagner's Ring cycle in a concert version.

From 2014 to 2020, Jordan served as principal conductor of the Wiener Symphoniker. Highlights of his tenure included complete cycles of Schubert’s symphonies, Beethoven’s symphonies and piano concertos, a cycle of J.S. Bach’s major masses and oratorios, and a contrast-filled dialogue pairing Bruckner’s last three symphonies with modern classics by Kurtág, Ligeti, and Scelsi.

As a symphonic conductor, Jordan has worked with the world’s most renowned orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics, the Concertgebouworkest, Münchner Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Seattle and San Fransisco symphonies, Cleveland, Minnesota, and Philadelphia orchestras, Los Angeles and New York philharmonics, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, St. Louis, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Washington, and Montreal.