Teodor Currentzis

Teodor Currentzis is a conductor and the Artistic Director of the Perm State Opera and Ballet Theatre, Artistic Director of the International Diaghilev Festival, Founder and Artistic Director of the ensemble musicAeterna and of the musicAeterna Chamber Choir, both formed in 2004, during his tenure as Music Director of the Novosibirsk State Opera and Orchestra (2004−2010). Officer of the Order of Friendship (2008), eight-time winner of the National Theatre Award «Golden Mask».

musicAeterna, now resident in Perm, has earned its reputation as the foremost Russian ensemble specialised in authentic performance. However, the orchestra does not limit its repertoire to early music, successfully combining pieces from different epochs, including 20th century works and new commissions. Together with Maestro Currentzis they have signed a contract with Sony Classical to record the three Mozart Da Ponte Operas: Le nozze di Figaro (2014, ECHO Klassik award as «Opera Recording of the Year: 17th—18th century»), Cosi fan tutte and Don Giovanni. In October 2014 they released the collection of works by Rameau entitled Rameau: The Sound of Light. They are also planning the release of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (with Patricia Kopatchinskaja as the soloist) and two CDs of works by Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring and Les Noces. In August 2014, at the RUHRtriennale International Arts Festival the director Romeo Castellucci presented Ballet for 40 Machines, a performance based on The Rite of Spring recorded by MusicAeterna and Teodor Currentzis. Previous recordings include Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14, Mozart’s Requiem and Dido and Aeneas (all on the Alpha label) and Shostakovich’s Piano Concertos with Alexander Melnikov and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (on Harmonia Mundi).

Teodor Currentzis has acquired the unofficial status of the champion of «authentic» Mozart in Russia. In 2012 Russian music critics introduced a new term, «Perm’s Mozart».

These coming seasons are very exciting for both Teodor and musicAeterna. In September 2013 the Perm Opera presented Purcell’s opera The Indian Queen, directed by the famous American director Peter Sellars, in co-production with the Madrid Teatro Real and English National Opera (London). In February 2014 Maestro Currentzis went on tour (Perm, Berlin, Athens, Paris, Lisbon) together with the musicAeterna Ensemble and Choir and an international line-up of soloists, presenting the concert performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Handel’s psalm Dixit Dominus.

In March 2015 Teodor Currentzis and the musicAeterna orchestra toured European venues: they gave performances at Klara Festival in Brussels, as well as at festivals in Athens, Helsinki, Luzern and Berlin. The musicians performed the concert version of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Rameau Gala, a programme of works by the great French baroque composer.

In July 2015, at the invitation of Bernard Foccroulle, the Director of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the soloists of the Perm opera Nadezhda Pavlova and Natalya Lyaskova, Stanislav Leontiev (Saint Petersburg) and Dmitry Ulyanov (Moscow), the MusicAeterna Choir and Ensemble conducted by Teodor Currentzis are going to perform Henry Purcell’s anthems, Stravinsky’s Les Noces, a capella pieces and the choral Orthodox liturgy at the most prestigious theatre venue in Europe. Besides, the musicAeterna Choir, headed by Teodor Currentzis, is going to present the programme of choral music from different historical periods, from the Middle Ages to the 21^st century, as well as to participate in the special festival performances of Alcina by Handel and Die Entführung aus dem Serail by Mozart.

Teodor Currentzis and his colleagues are also planning to release the recordings of Beethoven’s works in 2017.

In January 2013, Teodor Currentzis made his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Mozartwoche, and during 2013 he performed in the Munich Philharmonic. In April 2013 Maestro Currentzis made his debut with Zurich Opera in a production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Teodor has a long-standing and privileged relationship with the Madrid Teatro Real: the diptych Iolanta/Persephone (2012). Future projects in Madrid include Verdi’s Requiem, Wagner’s Tristian und Isolde, Verdi’s Don Carlos. 

Previous highlights include a successful debut at Paris Opera in 2008 which led to Teodor returning in 2009 with Verdi’s Don Carlos directed by Dmitry Tcherniakov; together with Tcherniakov, Currentzis also directed two operas at the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia — Berg’s Wozzeck (2009), and Mozart’s Don Giovanni in 2010. In 2009/2010, at the International Festival in Baden-Baden Teodor Currentzis showed a new production of Bizet’s Carmen, directing the Balthasar-Neumann-Choir and Orchestra, and two years later — Cosi fan tutte by Mozart. In 2010 he performed Weinberg’s The Passenger at the Bregenz Festival with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. In 2014 the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre gave the world premiere of the opera Nosferatu by Dmitri Kourliandski.

In 2006, combining his knowledge and passion for early music with contemporary composers and new music, Teodor started the Territoria Modern Art Festival, which in a short space of time has become the most prestigious and progressive annual music festival not only in Moscow, but, considering the participation of students from different Russian theatre academies, in the country as a whole.

Since 2012 Teodor Currentzis has been the Artistic Director of the International Diaghilev Festival in Perm, which has the aim of preserving and developing the traditions of the great impresario and promoter of Russian culture Sergei Pavlovitch Diaghilev. The programme of the festival includes the world premieres of operas and ballets, contemporary dance, drama theatre, art exhibitions, concerts of symphonic, music, chamber music, early music and jazz music, film retrospectives. The artistic strategy of the Festival is defined by Teodor Currentzis and artists in residence; the artists in residence of 2013 Diaghilev Festival were pianist and composer-postminimalist Anton Batagov, and Italian director, «unstoppable theatre innovator» Romeo Castellucci.

The Artistic Director and Conductor of the Perm Theatre Teodor Currentzis was nominated in the «Best Conductor» category four times: for Mozart’s opera Cosi fan Tutte and Pascal Dusapin’s Medeamaterial and for two ballets — Igor Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Sergei Prokofiev’s Chout. Currentzis received two awards — for Cosi fan Tutte and Chout. The season of 2012/2013 brought Currentzis a nomination for the «Golden Mask» Award for his achievements in Le nozze di Figaro in Perm.

Teodor Currentzis was born in Athens, Greece. Russia has become Teodor’s home since the beginning of the 1990s, when he studied conducting at the state conservatory of St. Petersburg, under the tutelage of Professor Ilya Musin, whose pupils, among others, were renowned conductors Odyseuss Dimitriadis, Valery Gergiev, and Semyon Bychkov.