Kazushi Ono is brilliant, lively and sensual, giving an exciting performance with forty virtuosic musicians of his orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon; it had panache and verve.
Le Monde
Described as 'one of the most fascinating musical minds of our era' and 'a phenomenon' (Le Figaro) Kazushi Ono has held the position of Principal Conductor of the Opéra de Lyon since the start of the 08/09 season and is also Conductor Laureate of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and from September 2012 he has been appointed the new Principal Guest Conductor of the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini.
During his current tenure in Lyon there have been new, award winning and critically acclaimed productions of Prokofiev's The Gambler, Berg's Lulu, Stravinsky's Le Rossingol et autre fables and Verdi's Luisa Miller. This season Kazushi Ono and the Opéra de Lyon will present Shostakovich's The Nose and Wagner's Parsifal.
High profile positions have been key to Kazushi Ono's career thus far, from Principal Conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra (1992-2001) to General Music Director of the Badisches Staatstheater (1996-2002). In 2002, Kazushi Ono succeeded Antonio Pappano as Music Director of La Monnaie, Brussels, where his debut production of Strauss's Elektra was described by the Süddeutsche Zeitung as 'the miracle of Brussels.' He enjoyed six highly successful seasons at La Monnaie before moving to Opéra de Lyon. These positions are testimony to the importance he places on devoting time to forging strong relationships with orchestras.
In addition to these tenures, Kazushi Ono has been guest conductor with some of the world's leading international orchestras including Boston and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Leipzig Gewandhaus; City of Birmingham Symphony; London, Rotterdam, Israel and Oslo Philharmonic Orchestras; Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; BBC Symphony and BBC National Orchestra of Wales along with radio orchestras such as Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Finnish and Vienna Radio Symphony and the German radio orchestras of Hamburg, Freiburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Köln.
Guest opera appearances this season will include a return to Glyndbourne for Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges and Bayerische Staatsoper Munich for Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer. Kazushi Ono enjoys relationships with many of the world's top opera houses and has more recently appeared as a guest conductor for Stravinsky's Le Rossignol at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence; Strauss's Elektra at Deutsche Oper Berlin; Verdi's Macbeth at La Scala; Hänsel und Gretel at Glyndebourne; Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer at The Met and a new production of Szymanowski's King Roger at Opéra de Paris. Kazushi Ono has conducted almost all of Wagner's operas, most notably the complete Ring Cycle at the Karlsruhe Opera during his tenure there from 1996-2002 as well as several operatic world premieres including Luca Francesconi's Ballata, Toshio Hosokawa's Hanjo and Philippe Boesmans's Julie.
Kazushi Ono has a strong affection for the theatre and works not only with established opera directors such as Luc Bondy, Peter Stein, Laurent Pelly and David McVicar but has also enjoyed collaborations with artists outside the traditional opera field such as the visual artist Jan Fabre, choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and film director François Girard.
His varied catalogue of CD recordings demonstrates his wide repertoire, ranging from Chin (Deutsche Grammophon), Gubaidulina, Britten, Turnage and Rihm to Shostakovich, Mahler, Strauss and Tchaikovsky. Other recent recordings include a 2009 Decca DVD of the acclaimed production of Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel filmed with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Glyndebourne as well as releases from the Opus Arte label featuring productions of Verdi's Aïda and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, both with La Monnaie, Brussels.
