Jean-Luc Tingaud

Conductor Jean-Luc Tingaud has concentrated on overlooked French operas while maintaining a foothold in the core repertory, and he maintains a parallel profile leading symphonic ensembles.

A native of 1969, he pursued studies in both conducting and piano at the Paris Conservatory. There he established the orchestra Ostinato, directing its account of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro; the ensemble has remained active under his leadership. He later served as assistant to the nonagenarian Manuel Rosenthal, himself a former pupil of Maurice Ravel, thereby acquiring lesser-known facets of French operatic practice. This experience led him to champion neglected French stage works, among them Massenet’s Sapho, Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui, and Reynaldo Hahn’s Ciboulette. Many of these productions occurred at Ireland’s Wexford Festival, where he first appeared in 2001 and has returned regularly. His debut recording, issued by Dynamic in 2004, featured the Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia in Massenet’s Werther.

He has worked with opera houses throughout France, Europe, and the United States, among them Opera Lille, the Prague National Theatre, and Palm Beach Opera. Guest engagements have taken him to the English Chamber Orchestra, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, and the Warsaw Philharmonic; in September 2019 he was appointed first guest conductor of Poland’s Beethoven Academy Orchestra. Beyond Dynamic he has recorded for Philips and Naxos. Although his discography centers on rare French operas, he has also documented orchestral repertoire, directing Ostinato in symphonic pieces by pop songwriter William Sheller and leading the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Bizet’s seldom-heard Roma Symphony. In 2020, with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and RCS Voices, he released a collection of little-known choral music by César Franck. He reappeared on Naxos in 2024, conducting the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in symphonies by Franck and Ernest Chausson.