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SEEN
AND HEARD NEWS
Mikko
Franck:
Appointment as Finnish National Opera's Artistic Director
confirmed today. (BK)
At its meeting today, December 18th, the Board of Directors of the
Finnish National Opera Foundation appointed Mikko Franck Artistic
Director and General Music Director of the Finnish National Opera.
Franck will take up the position as of January 1, 2008. His
contract extends to July 31, 2011, with an option for a two-year
continuation. Mikko Franck has been General Music Director of the
Finnish National Opera since autumn 2006. Until last summer, he
was also the Music Director and Chief Conductor of l’Orchestre
National de Belgique.
The appointments committee of the Board of Directors of the
Finnish National Opera Foundation nominated Mikko Franck for this
post in November. Before making the decision, the Board consulted
the personnel groups at the Opera, who were unanimously in favour
of the appointment.
The Artistic Director of the Finnish National Opera is responsible
for the artistic planning of the repertoire and concerts of the
Opera, for managing and developing its artistic operations, and
for maintaining and improving the artistic quality of the Opera.
He is responsible for the content and artistic policy of opera
productions, and he reports to General Director Päivi Kärkkäinen.
The Artistic Director of the Finnish National Ballet also reports
to the General Director.
Mikko Franck began studying the violin at the age of five and from
1992 studied at the Sibelius Academy and in New York, Israel and
Sweden. He began studying orchestra conducting in 1995, first
privately with Jorma Panula and then in 1996-1997 at the Sibelius
Academy.
Mikko Franck has rapidly emerged as one of the most interesting
conductors in the world today, and he commands a broad concert and
opera repertoire. In August 2006 he took up the post of General
Music Director and since January 2008 he also becomes
Artistic Director of the Finnish National Opera. Until summer 2007
he was Music Director and Chief Conductor of l’Orchestre National
de Belgique.
In recent years, he has conducted the Berlin, Munich, New York,
Los Angeles, Israel and London Philharmonic Orchestras and the
Bamberg, Dallas, Chicago, Tokyo and San Francisco Symphony
Orchestras. He has toured Japan with the Bamberg Symphony
Orchestra and l’Orchestre National de Belgique, and in 2002 he was
artistic director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra’s
Rautavaara & Franck festival.
At Finnish National Opera, Mikko Franck has already conducted
performances of The Magic Flute, L’elisir d’amore, Don Giovanni
and Tosca, the premieres of productions of La Bohème,
Khovanshchina, Manon Lescaut, Parsifal, Eugene Onegin and Punainen
viiva (The Red Line), and the world premiere of the opera Rasputin
by Einojuhani Rautavaara.
During the 2007–2008 season he will conduct performances of The
Red Line and the ballet The Sleeping Beauty. In July 2007 he
conducted Tosca and in November 2007 the premiere of L’elisir
d’amore at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. His future opera
productions include Salome at the Metropolitan Opera in 2008. His
recording of Sibelius’s En Saga and Lemminkäinen Suite with the
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra was excellently received in the
international press and gained a Grammy nomination for best
orchestral performance in 2001 and the Diapason d’or award. He has
also recorded works by Rautavaara, Tchaikovsky, Rudi Stephan and
Debussy. In 2006, the Finnish company WSOY published a book
jointly authored by Einojuhani Rautavaara and Mikko Franck,
entitled Keskusteluja ja Kirjoituksia (Discussions and writings.)
Bill Kenny
More information is available from:
The
The Finnish National Opera web site is www.operafin.fi