Maestro Donald Runnicles concluded his remarkable 17-year tenure as San Francisco Opera’s music director and principal conductor in July 2009. His nearly two decades of musical leadership have left an indelible mark on the Company and the Bay Area musical community. Although Maestro Runnicles goes on to his newly appointed posts as general music director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony, he will continue to be a part of San Francisco Opera’s musical life in the future, leading the Company’s upcoming Ring cycle.
Donald Runnicles served music director of San Francisco Opera from 1992 through July 2009. During the 2008–09 season he led the Company in four main-stage productions: Simon Boccanegra, Die Tote Stadt, Idomeneo, and La Traviata. He led a special gala performance of the Verdi Requiem in May 2009 to celebrate his remarkable tenure with the Company. The concert featured the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus with soloists Heidi Melton (soprano), Stephanie Blythe (mezzo-soprano), Stefano Secco (tenor), and Andrea Silvestrelli (bass).The maestro also serves as music director of the Grand Teton Music Festival and as principal guest conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He conducts regularly at the Vienna State Opera, the BBC Proms and the Edinburgh Festival, and has ongoing relationships with the Bayreuth, Salzburg, and Glyndebourne festivals. Runnicles’s recent engagements have included Peter Grimes in Geneva and Elektra in Mannheim, as well as concerts with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, and in Copenhagen and Rome.
Maestro Runnicles first led San Francisco Opera in two complete cycles of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in 1990 and has since conducted more than sixty productions here, including the world premieres of Adams’s Doctor Atomic and Susa’s The Dangerous Liaisons; the North American premiere of Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise; and the West Coast premiere of Wallace’s Harvey Milk. Born in Scotland, Runnicles studied at St. John’s College Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh. He began his career as a répétiteur in Mannheim, Germany and was named general music director of the city of Freiburg in 1989. He made his North American debut in 1988 conducting Berg’s Lulu at the Metropolitan Opera, where he returns frequently.
Throughout his career, Donald Runnicles has also conducted many of the world’s finest orchestras and opera companies, including the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Bayreuth Festival Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, among others. His notable discography includes vocal and symphonic works ranging from Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice with San Francisco Opera and a recent Tristan und Isolde to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Britannia, a new collection of British orchestral music. Maestro Runnicles holds an honorary degree from Edinburgh University and was made an Officer of the British Empire in 2004.
For more information on Donald Runnicles, visit his Web site at www.donaldrunnicles.com
