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EIN BAUER NAMENS VERDI

Conductor: Asher Fisch
Staging: Andreas Weirich
Orchestra and Chorus of the Tiroler Festspiele Erl

A farmer named Verdi? Has the Tiroler Festspiele Erl somehow got its music history mixed up? Wasn’t Giuseppe Verdi a great Italian opera com-poser? Perhaps even the greatest of them all? This family concert will be unravelling the conun-drum in entertaining fashion. We will be telling Verdi’s story in a playful, vivid manner – first meeting the young composer from the village of Le Roncole in the Po Valley, then the influential figures in his life including the singer Giuseppina Strepponi and his publisher Giulio Ricordi. There’ll be plenty of music, plus surprising insights into the eventful life of Verdi the young man, resulting in a colourful portrait that will transport young and old alike into 19th-century Italy and the world of Italian opera.

A scenic portrait of Giuseppe Verdi for an orchestra, a conductor and four performers

Team

Asher Fisch Conductor

Asher Fisch is Chief Conductor of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and has been Music Director of the Tiroler Festspiele in Erl since the beginning of the 2024/25 season. He is internationally recognized as one of the leading conductors and has an extensive repertoire that covers both opera and concert areas. He began his career as an assistant to Daniel Barenboim and as a conductor at the Berlin State Opera. Since then, he has conducted at major European opera houses, including Vienna, Milan, Munich, Paris and Madrid. As an acknowledged Wagner specialist, Fisch has recorded two complete "Ring" cycles as well as "Tristan und Isolde". In addition, he has intensively studied the Italian repertoire and recently released a Puccini album together with tenor Jonas Kaufmann, the new Artistic Director of the Tiroler Festspiele Erl.

As a concert conductor, Asher Fisch has led renowned US American and European orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France and the London Symphony Orchestra. Asher Fisch is also active as a pianist and can be experienced in piano concerts, with chamber music and as a song accompanist.

Andreas Weirich Staging

Andreas Weirich is a stage director at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and works as a freelance director. He has collaborated closely with directors such as Barrie Kosky, Christof Loy, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Tobias Kratzer, and Andreas Kriegenburg. Guest engagements have taken him to Tokyo, Paris, Lyon, Valencia, Barcelona, Salzburg, and Bregenz, among other places. In Munich, he has directed, among other works, the children’s opera Nepomuk's Night, Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King and Poul Ruders’ Selma Ježkova. From 2019 to 2021, he developed and directed new opera and streaming formats for the Bavarian State Opera. His own directing credits include, among others, the 2019 world premiere of Marius Felix Lange’s The Song of the Enchanted Island at the Salzburg Festival, as well as the double bill in 2021 Sokol/Alcide and the 2022 world premiere of Yevhen Stankovych's The Terrible Revenge at the Lviv National Opera.

Orchestra and Chorus of the Tiroler Festspiele Erl

Tiroler Festspiele Erl Orchestra

The music springs from the enthusiasm of a motivated and exceptionally well-prepared ensemble that has grown together over the years. The Tyrolean Festival Erl Orchestra was first formed in the summer of 1999—and today, musicians from 20 nations play together. Already in its first year, the ensemble achieved unprecedented success, which would go on to bring international recognition to the Tyrolean Festival Erl. Top young talents, musicians from major international orchestras, chamber music specialists, and lecturers come together annually in summer and winter—and since 2017, also in fall and spring—as part of the Tyrolean Festival Erl. Under the direction of festival founder Gustav Kuhn, the orchestra garnered rave reviews from international critics and cemented its reputation as one of the world’s finest Wagner orchestras. With the start of Jonas Kaufmann’s tenure as artistic director in September 2024, Asher Fisch—a conductor in high demand internationally in both opera and concert settings—has taken over the helm of the orchestra.

In addition to Richard Wagner’s ten major music dramas and operas by Strauss, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, and Rossini, the orchestra’s repertoire includes Beethoven’s symphonies and many other key works from the concert repertoire spanning the Baroque and Romantic periods, as well as contemporary works and world premieres.

Tiroler Festspiele Erl Choir

Founded in 2007, the choir serves as an equal musical partner to the festival orchestra. The focus is on meticulous attention to individual parts. As part of the festival, the singers work on a wide range of projects, from a cappella programs to concert and opera productions. Since the opening of the Festspielhaus Erl in 2012, the repertoire has placed additional emphasis on bel canto works and Verdi’s operas.

The development of a Baroque choral sound in the works of Bach and his contemporaries is also a key focus of the ensemble’s work; since 2009, it has maintained close ties with Capella Minsk, the State Academic Choir of the Republic of Belarus. Founded in 1940, this choral ensemble has made it its mission to preserve Belarusian folk music and to premiere works by modern and contemporary composers.

The choir is distinguished by its precise intonation, harmony, versatility, and dynamic sound—qualities that have formed the basis for numerous tours throughout Europe in recent years. Its repertoire includes requiems, masses, cantatas, and sacred works, as well as operas. After Lyudmila Yefimova spent many years developing and shaping the choir’s quality, Olga Yanum took over as the ensemble’s director following her death in 2018.