Sebastian Weigle

Sebastian Weigle has built a reputation as a conductor deeply engaged with Romantic opera, above all the music of Wagner, appearing regularly at major international houses. His activities also encompass symphonic repertoire, and from 2019 onward he served as chief conductor of Tokyo’s Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, a post he retained through the mid-2020s.

Born in East Berlin in 1961, Weigle grew up in the German Democratic Republic. His father, Gottfried Weigle, held the position of cantor at the Schlosskirche in the Berlin-Buch district, and he is the nephew of conductor Jörg-Peter Weigle. He began his musical training on the French horn and was among the founding members of the Berlin Wind Quintet, established in 1975. At the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler he studied horn, piano, and conducting, later returning to the institution as a lecturer. In 1982 he joined the Berlin Staatskapelle as principal hornist, remaining with the orchestra until 1997. During those years he also performed with the East Berlin jazz ensemble Vielharmonie and with the Berliner Oktett.

Although the Staatskapelle post carried considerable prestige, Weigle continued to pursue conducting. He assembled the Kammerchor Berlin in 1987, selecting its members personally, and in 1990 assumed leadership of the Neues Berliner Kammerorchester. Between 1993 and 2018 he served as music director of the Junge Philharmonie Brandenburg. His first appearance on disc as a horn player came in 1993, when the Berliner Bläserquintett recorded Jean Françaix in Concert. Five years later he made his conducting debut on record for the MDG label, directing the Ensemble Villa Musica in works by Louis Spohr.

Weigle’s profile as an opera conductor specializing in the German repertory rose sharply in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Appointed First Staatskapellmeister at the Staatsoper Berlin in 1997, he moved to Barcelona in 2004 to become general music director of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, a post he held until 2009. He made his Bayreuth Festival debut in 2007 with a new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg staged by Richard Wagner’s great-granddaughter Katharina Wagner. The following year he was named general music director of the Frankfurt Opera.

As a guest conductor he has appeared with leading companies, leading Strauss’s Salome at the Staatsoper Hamburg in 2014, Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera in 2017, and Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel at Covent Garden in 2019. That same year he was appointed principal conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony in Tokyo, where he remained into the mid-2020s; he relinquished the Frankfurt Opera directorship in 2023. His discography comprises more than forty albums, many recorded with Frankfurt Opera forces for Oehms Classics and centered on German opera. In 2023 he recorded Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve for Naxos with the Frankfurter Opern- and Museumsorchester, the Frankfurt Opera Chorus, and soloists.