Leadership

Emmanuel Villaume is currently in his seventh season as Music Director for Opera & Orchestra at the Spoleto Festival USA.

His recent engagements have included L’Elisir d’Amore for Washington National Opera, Samson et Delila at the Metropolitan Opera New York, La Rondine (with Angela Gheorghiu) at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein and La Bohème (with Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna) at the Los Angeles Opera. In July 2006, he also appeared at the Aspen and Grant Park music festivals.

In 2006/2007 and future seasons, he conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London and Vienna in concert performances with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon, the Orchestre National de Belgique with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon at the Festival de Saint-Denis, the Slovak Philharmonic at the Bratislava Festival, the Münchner Rundfunkorchester with Patrizia Ciofi, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille. He also returns to the Chicago and Montreal Symphony orchestras.

Born in Strasbourg in 1964, Emmanuel Villaume began his musical education at the Strasbourg Conservatory and continued his studies in Paris, where he received degrees in literature, philosophy and musicology. He was appointed Dramaturg of the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg at the age of 21, and during his tenure there was invited to conduct and narrate Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, followed by his American debut at the 1990 Spoleto Festival USA with Le Nozze di Figaro.

Since then, he has led numerous symphonic concerts and opera performances for Spoleto Festival USA, including the American premiere of Henze’s Der Prinz von Homburg in 1995 and acclaimed productions of Ariadne auf Naxos, Manon Lescaut, Der fliegende Holländer, Lakmé, and Don Giovanni.

Maestro Villaume has appeared with the Washington Opera (La Rondine, Norma, Le Cid, Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Lucia di Lammermoor), the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), the Lyric Opera of Chicago (Samson et Dalila), Cologne Opera (La Bohème and Werther), Los Angeles Opera (Les Contes d’Hoffmann, La Rondine), Bastille Opera (Rigoletto), Dallas Opera (Faust and Le Nozze di Figaro), Hamburg Staatsoper (Der fliegende Holländer), San Francisco Opera (Madama Butterfly), Santa Fe Opera (Carmen), Toulouse Opera (Mignon), Bonn Opera (La Fanciulla del West), Martina Franca Opera (La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein), Montreal Opera (La Vie Parisienne); Sarasota Opera (Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Die Zauberflöte and Manon), Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (La Rondine and Faust), the Opéra de Marseille (Pelléas et Mélisande, Norma), and the Klangbogen Festival in Vienna for Don Quichotte and Goya with Plácido Domingo.

In addition, he has conducted the Montreal Symphony in Montreal and at Carnegie Hall; the Boston Symphony at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood; the San Francisco, Houston, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Detroit symphonies; the Minnesota Orchestra; the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic; the Beethovenhalle Orchestra of Bonn and the Slovak Philharmonic; the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane Symphonies; the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra; the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana; and the orchestras of the Bastille Opera, Teatro alla Scala and La Fenice, the latter in a concert performance of Berlioz’s Les Troyens.

Future opera projects include La Bohème and Hamlet for Washington Opera, Hansel and Gretel for Los Angeles Opera, Manon and The Merry Widow (with Natalie Dessay) for Chicago Lyric Opera, Les Contes d’Hoffmann for the Metropolitan Opera, Meyerbeer’s Il Crociato in Egitto for the opening of the 2007 season at La Fenice, and Ariane et Barbe Bleue at the Teatro Regio di Torino.

Emmanuel Villaume holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Indianapolis.