David Bates
Conductor
Media
News
David Bates opens the 2024/25 season on 12 October conducting Idomeneo in concert with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in an exciting house debut at the Theater an der Wien.
MORENews
On 15 June David Bates directs La Nuova Musica at Wigmore Hall in a programme of Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Carissimi’s Jephte and as a contrast, the world premiere of...
MORENews
David Bates looks forward to returning to the Komische Oper Berlin for a third visit – this time to conduct Handel’s dramatic oratorio Hercules. This Barrie Kosky production runs from...
MOREBaroque specialist David Bates conducts the orchestra of the Komische Oper with juice and vehemence.
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music and of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, David Bates initially embarked on a professional singing career before turning to directing/conducting. He founded La Nuova Musica in 2007, a vocal and instrumental ensemble dedicated to the music of the Baroque and Classical periods. A recent highlight was a semi-staged performance of Purcell Dido and Aeneas at the 2022 BBC Proms, described as a superbly evocative night in The Times and a highly shaped, highly articulated performance, a musical tour de force that filled the hall in Opera Today.
Highlights
- Theater an der Wien – Mozart Idomeneo
- Komische Oper Berlin – Gluck Orfeo ed Euridice, Handel Saul, Handel Hercules
- Hannover Staatsoper – Monteverdi Orfeo, Handel Il Trionfo del tempo e del disinganno, Handel Alcina
- Glyndebourne Festival – Handel Alcina
- BBC Proms – Dido and Aeneas – La Nuova Musica
- Munich Symphony Orchestra – Mozart/Beethoven
- Baroque concerts with Deutsche Oper Berlin; Opéra de Rouen; Orchestra of the 18th Century
Biography
David opens the current season conducting Stefan Herheim’s new production of Idomeneo with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in his debut at Theater an der Wien. Other season highlights include concerts with the Orchestra of the 18th Century, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Opéra de Rouen while further ahead he will return to Opéra de Rouen for Agrippina, The Grange Festival and make his debut at Garsington Opera in 2027.
Following a very successful debut at the Komische Oper in a new production of Gluck Orfeo ed Euridice by Damiano Michieletto in 2022, Fredrik Hanssen in Der Tagesspiegel was prompted to write [Bates] can also draw out real beauty from Gluck’s score with a stylistic ‘all-rounder’ group like the Orchestra of the Komische Oper, which produces velvety sonorities, and heady gracefulness, he has since returned there to conduct Handel Saul and Hercules.
Elsewhere he has conducted Handel Alcina for Glyndebourne Festival with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Handel Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno; Handel Alcina and Monteverdi Orfeo for Staatsoper Hannover; Handel Serse with Opéra de Rouen Normandie; Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea at The Grange Festival and Handel Israel in Egypt with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists while, on the concert platform, he has explored Mozart and Beethoven with the Munich Symphony Orchestra.
Directing from the harpsichord, David’s previous opera productions have included Rinaldo for Glyndebourne on Tour; Cesti Orontea at the Innsbrucker Festwochen; Cavalli La Calisto for Cincinnati Opera; Iphigénie en Tauride at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon and Vivaldi Farnace with the Tony Award-winning theatre director Garry Hynes at the Spoleto Festival in the United States.
Together with La Nuova Musica, David has made award-winning recordings for Pentatone and Harmonia Mundi. Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice on Pentatone, featuring Iestyn Davies and Sophie Bevan, was shortlisted for a 2020 Gramophone Award, and their CDs for Harmonia Mundi received ‘Le choix de France Musique’ and Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’.
FOR USE IN THE 2024/25 SEASON
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