Patrick Fournillier
Biography
French conductor Patrick Fournillier has established an international career as a distinguished interpreter of French and Italian opera, appearing at many of the world’s leading opera houses and concert halls.
Among the highlights of his operatic career are Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, with Plácido Domingo, and at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris; Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust at the Semperoper in Dresden; Gounod’s Faust at the Zurich Opera House; Verdi’s Don Carlos at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin; Massenet’s Werther at the Bavarian State Opera; Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in Chicago and Stuttgart; Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Thomas’s Hamlet in Washington and Strasbourg; Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila in Stockholm; Massenet’s Manon and Thaïs – the latter with Plácido Domingo – and Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride in Valencia; Massenet’s Don Quichotte at the Paris National Opera; Bizet’s Carmen in Stuttgart; and Verdi’s Rigoletto and La traviata at Teatro Regio Torino. At the Polish National Opera in Warsaw, Fournillier has conducted productions of La traviata, Rigoletto, Carmen, Puccini’s Tosca and Turandot, Beethoven’s Fidelio and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. In Oman, he conducted Carmen for the inaugural season of the Royal Opera House Muscat. His international engagements have also included Massenet’s Manon in Nice and San Francisco, Turandot in Antwerp, and Verdi’s Il trovatore, Puccini’s Tosca and Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Helsinki. He has appeared as a guest conductor at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing and in Madrid, where he conducted Massenet’s Thaïs with Plácido Domingo, as well as in Seattle, where he conducted Poulenc’s La voix humaine and Puccini’s Suor Angelica.
Fournillier is currently Music Director of the Polish National Opera in Warsaw. Recent Warsaw productions include, in addition to those mentioned above, Verdi’s Aida and Puccini’s La bohème and Madama Butterfly. Since September 2017, he has also served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki. He is the founder and Music Director of the Massenet Festival in Saint-Étienne.
As a symphonic conductor, Fournillier has worked with many of the world’s leading orchestras in cities including London, Oslo, Milan, Zurich, Prague, Amsterdam, Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin, Vienna, Washington, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Moscow and St Petersburg. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano. Previously, he served for six years as Music Director of the Orchestra Sinfonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma, where he was closely associated with the Verdi Festival, founded in 2001.
Fournillier is a recipient of the prestigious Grand Prix du Disque for two recordings of French opera arias with the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, one featuring Rockwell Blake and the other Natalie Dessay. He was also awarded the Gold Diapason for the first recording of Haydn’s oratorio Applausus. His extensive discography includes works by Massenet, Gounod, Auber, Adam, Cherubini, Haydn, Mozart, Prokofiev and numerous other composers.