On Tuesday, July 10, during its Annual Meeting
at McCaw Hall, Seattle Opera General Director
Speight Jenkins announced that the company’s
Artist of the Year awards went to Asher Fisch,
who conducted Richard Strauss’s
Rosenkavalier
and the International Wagner Competition at
Seattle Opera in August 2006, and Mariusz
Kwiecien, who sang the title role in Mozart’s
Don Giovanni
at Seattle Opera in January 2007.
“The choices couldn’t have pleased me more,”
said Jenkins. “Asher is not only one of the
greatest conductors of Strauss and Wagner of our
time, he was eager to work with us on our
inaugural International Wagner Competition, and
displayed an astounding grasp of the whole
Wagner repertory. Mariusz is one of the world’s
great baritones and in my opinion the world’s
best Giovanni. I’m honored whenever he sings
with Seattle Opera.”
Fisch is currently in rehearsal at Seattle Opera
for Wagner’s
Flying Dutchman
(Der fliegende
Holländer), which
opens August 4 and runs through August 25, 2007.
Kwiecien will next be seen
at Seattle Opera as Riccardo in Bellini’s
I Puritani,
which opens May 3 and runs through May 17,
2008.
In 1991, the Seattle Opera’s Artist of the Year
award was created to honor the individual
singer,
conductor, director, or designer who had
made the most significant contribution to the
success of the season. At the conclusion of the
2003/04 season, Seattle Opera began honoring two
Artists of
the Year for the season: one a
conductor, director, or designer; the other a
singer.
Participating in the selection process of
Seattle Opera’s Artists of the Year are members
of Seattle Opera’s Board of Trustees, Diamond
Level and Platinum Circle donors, and staff, as
well as selected members of the local press.
This is the company’s sixteenth annual selection
of Artist of the Year.
The voting was tabulated
by Clark Nuber P.S. Previous winners include
(in chronological order,
starting with the
1990/91 season): stage director Francesca Zambello, soprano Sally Wolf, baritone
Robert Orth, soprano Jane Eaglen (twice), soprano
Harolyn Blackwell, tenor Ben Heppner,
countertenor Brian Asawa, soprano Sheri
Greenawald, bass Alexander Anisimov, baritone
Christopher Maltman, director Stephen Wadsworth,
contralto Ewa Podlés, bass Stephen Milling
and
director Chris Alexander (twice), and bass John Relyea. Last season, baritone Greer Grimsley (Wotan/Wanderer
in the 2005
Ring des Nibelungen) and conductor
Nicola Luisotti (2006 production
of
Macbeth)
were named Artists of the Year.
Short Biographies of Asher Fisch and Mariusz
Kwiecien
Asher Fisch
Conductor
A native of Jerusalem, Asher Fisch made his
company debut conducting Seattle Opera’s first
production of Wagner’s
Parsifal
in 2003. He returned the following year for
Wagner’s
Lohengrin and, in 2006, conducted
Der
Rosenkavalier and the International
Wagner Competition. The music director of
Israeli Opera, Fisch made his U.S. debut in 1995
conducting Wagner’s
Fliegende
Holländer at Los Angeles Opera. Since
then, he has conducted Lehar’s
Merry Widow
and Verdi’s
Rigoletto, and Puccini’s
Madama
Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera,
as well as conducting
Madama
Butterfly, Verdi’s
Macbeth,
and J. Strauss’s
Fledermaus
at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Janacek’s
Katya Kabanova
at Houston Grand Opera. Fisch has conducted
operas in Europe at Vienna Staatsoper, Royal
Opera Covent Garden, Berlin Staatsoper,
Bayerische Staatsoper, and Royal Danish Opera,
among others. In Adelaide, he conducted Wagner’s
Ring
at the State Opera of South Australia. His many
symphony credits include the Munich
Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France,
Japan’s NHK Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Seattle
Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Orchestre
Symphonique de Montréal. Also a pianist, Maestro
Fisch has conducted several Mozart piano
concerti and Gershwin’s
Rhapsody in
Blue from the keyboard, and has
performed the four-hands version of Stravinsky’s
Sacre du
Printemps with Daniel Barenboim in
Berlin. Fisch is currently in rehearsal at
Seattle Opera for Wagner’s
Flying Dutchman
(Der fliegende Holländer). In 2008,
he will make his debut at the Teatro alla Scala
conducting Lehar’s
Merry Widow.
Mariusz Kwiecien
Baritone
Mariusz Kwiecien made his Seattle Opera debut
singing Malatesta in the 2003 production of
Donizetti’s
Don Pasquale. He returned to the
company in 2007 as Don Giovanni, a role that he
has sung in Europe, the United States, and
Japan. The Polish baritone began his career at
the Krakow Opera in 1993, performing Aeneas in
Purcell’s
Dido and Aeneas. He has appeared in
theaters across Europe, including Teatro alla
Scala, Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera Covent
Garden, and the Glyndebourne Festival, among
others. He has also appeared in Teatro Municipal
in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as Enrico in Donizetti’s
Lucia di
Lammermoor. In the U.S., Kwiecien has
performed at such houses as Lyric Opera of
Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera,
and the Metropolitan Opera, where his roles have
included Guglielmo, Mozart’s Count Almaviva, Ali
in Rossini’s
Italiana in
Algeri , Marcello in Puccini’s
Bohème,
and, in 2006, Malatesta. Other regular roles for
Kwiecien are Belcore in Donizetti’s
Elisir d’amore,
Silvio in Leoncavallo’s
Pagliacci,
and the title role in Tchaikovsky’s
Eugene Onegin.
Kwiecien will next be seen at Seattle Opera as
Riccardo in Bellini’s
I Puritani.