Biography
Peter Feranec was born in 1964 in Bratislava. In 1985 after graduating from the Bratislava Academy of Music, he attended the Bartok International Festival and Seminar under Peter Eötvös and conducted contemporary music. The same year, supported by a scholarship from the Russian Ministry of Culture, he began five years of studies at the State Conservatory in St. Petersburg under Mariss Jansons.
After completing his postgraduate studies in Vienna in 1991 with Karl Oesterreicher Feranec was engaged as a conductor of the Slovak National Opera House in Bratislava. At the age of 25 he was finalist of the international competitions in Tokyo (1991) and Budapest (1992) and gold medalist of the 1992 Forum of Young Artists competition in Vienna.
Peter Feranec made his debut at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in February 1995, leading a production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (with Joachim Herz as stage director). This epochmaking production at the Bolshoi – in the midst of the revolutionary changes reflecting the new democratic Russia – featured foreign guest artists and attracted widespread attention from the international music community. Feranec’s role in this production led to his appointment as the first foreign-born principal conductor of the Bolshoi (and also the youngest one). At the Bolshoi Feranec conducted various premieres: Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Puccini’s La bohème, Verdi’s La traviata and Aida, Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades, and in 1997/1998 Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges with Sir Peter Ustinov as stage director. He also conducted some 18 other operas from the Bolshoi repertoire and led the orchestra on extensive tours through America, Europe and Japan.
From 1997 to 2000 Feranec was Principal Guest conductor of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. 2001-02 he was Principal Conductor at the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava. Presently Peter Feranec is Chief Conductor of the Slovenian National Opera Ljubljana and Principal Conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra Bratislava.
Apart from all major Czech, Slovak and Russian orchestras Feranec has also conducted Oslo and Lisbon Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra de Sao Paulo, SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden, Guerzenich-Orchester Cologne and Nürnberger Symphoniker. He has visited a large number of chamber orchestras and conducted opera performances in Bratislava, Prague (State Opera, National Theatre), St. Petersburg (Mariinsky), Berlin (Deutsche Oper, Komische Oper), Buenos Aires (Teatro Colon), Cologne, Oslo and Lisbon.
He conducted new productions of Eugene Onegin in Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse, The Queen of Spades and Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera in Volkstheater Rostock as well as Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur at the Prague National Theater. After his debut at the Zurich Opera in 2004, he has already conducted a broad range of performances in Zurich (e.g. Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker and Swan Lake, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Janáček‘s The Cunning Little Vixen).
Update: January 2008