Alexander Joel launched his season 2023/24 with a revival of the David McVicar production of “La Traviata” at the Welsh National Opera, returning to the Opera Vlaandern for a new semi-concertante version of “Die Fledermaus”. In January and February 2024, he returned to the Hamburg State Opera to conduct Puccini’s “Il trittico” and “Madama Butterfly”, followed by a new production of “La Rondine” at the Wiener Volksoper, where he has been the principal guest conductor since 2022, in a staging by Volksoper Director, Lotte De Beer. The production features a new version of the final scene arranged by Maestro Joel himself. In June 2024, he will conduct a new production of Janáček’s “The Makropulos Affair” at the Opéra de Lyon, staged by Richard Brunel.
The 2024/25 season will feature his return to the Royal Opera House in London for “La Traviata”, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at the Vienna Musikverein, his debut at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv with a new production of “Peter Grimes” in December, and his return to the Hamburg State Opera with “Così fan tutte”.
Highlights of his 2022/2023 season included a revival of Gounod’s “Faust” at the Hamburg State Opera, his return to the Oper Zürich for the concert premiere of Delibes “Lakmé”, as well as his Debut with “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” and “Tristan und Isolde” at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden.
Alexander Joel is a regular guest at London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden since 2012, where he has already conducted “Carmen”, “La traviata” “La bohème”, “Rigoletto” and “Tosca”. Other opera highlights in the last few seasons have included premieres of Madama Butterfly at the Staatsoper Hamburg (available on DVD with Arthaus), Verdi’s Macbeth at the Royal Danish Opera, new productions of Rigoletto and Madama Butterfly at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Faust at the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden. Since 2001 he has been a regular guest at houses such as the Bayerische Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Semper Oper in Dresden, the Finnish National Opera, the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Den Norske Opera, Vlaamse Opera, Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf, the Cologne Opera, the Hamburg State Opera, Teatro Municipale Santiago de Chile, Boston Lyric Opera, Royal Opera Stockholm, Malmö Opera, Welsh National Opera, English National Opera, the Zürich Opera, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Volksoper Wien, and the Opéra de Marseille.
On the concert platform, he has conducted orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Düsseldorf Symphoniker, the Duisburg Philharmoniker, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the WDR Rundfunkorchester, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Montpellier, Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano, BBC Philharmonic, the RSO Wien.
Alexander Joel held the position of Generalmusikdirektor of the Staatstheater and Staatsorchester Braunschweig from 2007 to 2014 where he conducted most of the symphonic repertoire, with his emphasis being the Mahler Symphonies (Mahler’s Symphony No.1 available on CD at Corvello Classics) and the German/Austrian repertoire- Bruckner, Brahms and Beethoven. In the opera field, he specialized in the core German repertoire with operas such as “Salome”, “Lohengrin”, “Rosenkavalier”, “Tristan und Isolde” and “Parsifal”. Furthermore, he was appointed principal guest conductor at the Vlaamse opera from the 2016/2017 season to 2018, where he conducted tremendously successful productions such as “Die Frau ohne Schatten”, “Don Carlos”, “Das Wunder der Heliane”, “La Forza del destino”, “Don Giovanni” and “Otello”, as well as covering a broad concert repertoire.
Son of a British mother and a German father, Alexander Joel is a dual national who grew up in Vienna and London and was educated in Switzerland. After a brief spell of studying French and English Law at King’s College in London, he moved back to Vienna to study piano at the Academy of Music, before completing his conducting studies at the Vienna Conservatory of Music with honours in 1996. He was a prize winner at the European Conducting Competition in Spoleto that same year. After various Kapellmeister positions in Baden, Klagenfurt and the Vienna Volksoper, Joel was First Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein from 2001 to 2007. He moved back to Vienna in 2018.
