Philippe Jordan

Coming from an artistic Swiss family, Philippe Jordan’s career has taken him to all the world’s major opera houses, festivals and orchestras, and he is regarded as one of the most established 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 will lead new productions of Don Carlo and Tannhäuser, as well as revivals of the Da Ponte Cycle and Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Also in 2024/25 season, Jordan will conduct Parsifal at the Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin, and return to the Salzburger Festspiele to revive Macbeth. His symphonic appearance this season includes a return to the Wiener Symphoniker for Mahler’s 8th Symphony followed by returns to the Orchestre National de France, the Boston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Münchner Philharmoniker and the Israel Philharmonic, 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 at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. From 2001 to 2004 he was principal conductor of the Graz Opera and the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra, during which period he also debuted at several of the world’s leading opera houses and festivals, including at 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 2006-2010 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 again in 2017 with Bayreuth’s new production of “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”, which he also conducted in subsequent years.

Jordan was musical director of the Opéra national de Paris between 2009 and 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 Philippe Jordan served as principal conductor of the Wiener Symphoniker. Highlights of his tenure with the orchestra include complete cycles of Schubert’s symphonies and Beethoven’s symphonies and piano concerti, a cycle of J. S. Bach’s major masses and oratorios and a contrast-filled dialogue with Bruckner´s last three symphonies and modern classics by Kurtág, Ligeti and Scelsi.

As a symphonic conductor, Philippe Jordan has worked the world’s most famous orchestras, including the Berliner and Wiener Philharmoniker, the Concertgebouworkest, Münchner Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the 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, and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Seattle, St. Louis, Dallas, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Washington, Minnesota, Montreal, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.