Au revoir, State Opera!

Music Director Jordan returns to France

Philippe Jordan leaves the Vienna State Opera

(Bild: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)

Philippe Jordan, outgoing Music Director of the Vienna State Opera, will take over as Chief Conductor of the Orchestre National de France on September 1, 2027 and thus return to France.

It has been clear for some time that the contract of State Opera Music Director Philippe Jordan, which expires next year, will not be extended. At the latest after the public dispute with Director Bogdan Roščić in 2022, but now the fog is also clearing over the future of the 50-year-old Swiss maestro. Jordan will take over as Chief Conductor of the Orchestre National de France on September 1, 2027, thus returning to France.

After all, Philippe Jordan had been at the helm of the Opéra National de Paris for many years before taking up his post in Vienna in September 2020. "For me, this new connection feels like a homecoming. The twelve years at the Paris Opera were a joyful time, and after my years at the Vienna State Opera and before that as head of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, I am now returning to France," said Jordan in a press release, expressing his delight at returning to his roots.

With his new post, Jordan is following in the footsteps of greats such as Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur and Daniele Gatti. Cristian Măcelaru is currently at the helm of the Orchestre National de France, which has dedicated itself to cultivating French repertoire and sound.

Philippe Jordan on the podium of the Vienna State Opera

(Bild: Michael Poehn)

Born on October 18, 1974, Jordan's Francophile streak may have its roots in his family. After all, he is the son of Armin Jordan, the long-time General Music Director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, who died in 2006. Jordan Junior began his musical training on the piano at the age of six, became a Zurich choirboy two years later and also took up the violin at the same time. At the age of 16, from 1990, he studied at the Zurich Conservatory and completed his piano exam with distinction.

Jordan then wasted similarly little time in his career as a conductor. As early as 1994, the high-flyer was engaged by the Ulm Municipal Theatre, where he became Germany's youngest conductor in 1996. Jordan came onto the radar screen of international critics at the latest with his subsequent engagement in Berlin, where he was assistant to Daniel Barenboim at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden from 1998 to 2001.

The polyglot artist's liaison with Austria then began when he was appointed Chief Conductor of the Graz Opera House and the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra in 2001 - a position he relinquished in 2004 due to disagreements over budget and personnel planning with the opera directors and political decision-makers.

However, this step was by no means a career break for the busy maestro, as he had already made his debut at almost all of the world's major opera houses. Jordan returned to Berlin in 2006, where he remained principal guest conductor at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden until 2010. At the same time, he also worked as a concert conductor with orchestras such as the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Jordan had already celebrated his debut with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Konzerthaus in 2004 - so it was no surprise that the orchestra presented the young maestro as its new chief conductor in 2011, starting with the 2014/15 season.

Jordan's penchant for Beethoven's symphonic works crystallized: the previous year, he presented a complete recording of the nine monumental works with his Paris orchestra, and the Wiener Symphoniker also performed the complete works live under their chief conductor in 2016/17, or recorded them for the orchestra's own label.

Jordan also focused on Schubert, Bela Bartok and the masses and oratorios by Johann Sebastian Bach with the symphony orchestra. This musical all-rounder in the best sense of the word has a wide-ranging repertoire, which is probably due not least to his operatic work. From Russian to French, from German to Italian, from the classical canon to more recent experiments, there is hardly an area in which Jordan is not involved.

The Swiss conductor had already made a name for himself internationally as music director of the Paris Opera - a position he took up in 2009 at the age of just 34. At the Seine, he was responsible for a "Ring" cycle, among other things, but naturally made a name for himself not least in the French repertoire. However, the conductor was able to prove his Wagner expertise time and again, not least in Bayreuth.

And after his head position at the Vienna Symphony Orchestra expired at the end of the 2019/20 season, his tenure as music director at the State Opera began in September 2020. However, Jordan had already gained experience there since his debut in 1999 with Lehar's "Merry Widow". After the first, conflict-free honeymoon period in 2022, however, there was a virtual exchange of blows with director Bogdan Roščić over the question of whether Jordan voluntarily did not want to extend his contract beyond 2025 due to disappointment with the Regietheater or whether Roščić had already informed him of the non-extension beforehand. In any case, Jordan's time at the Vienna State Opera will come to an end after the first five-year contract in 2025, whereupon he has stated in interviews that he no longer wants to be tied to a fixed house. Instead, he is now turning back to the symphonic.