Michael Fichtenholz was born in Moscow and studied violin and later history of music. He graduated in 2002 from the Russian Academy of Music with a research dedicated to the magical operas of Händel and its Venetian background. Active as a music critic still in his final student years, he later joined the Moscow Easter Festival of Valery Gergiev where he became the programme director and the Moscow State Philharmonic Society, where from 2006/07 he present his own concert series with operatic masterpieces starring some of the top-notched singers and conductors; among the others there were first-ever performances in Russia of Händel’s masterpieces: Orlando (2009), Ariodante (2011), Hercules (2013) and Teseo (2017). He also served as the head of artists and repertoire at the Russian National Orchestra (2007 - 2014) as well as head of long-term planning at the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia (2009 - 2013) before moving to Germany where he joined the Baden State Theatre in Karlsruhe as Director of Opera and Artistic Director of the Karlsruhe International Handel Festival. His festival editions of 2016, 2017 and 2018 featured some of the most prominent artists of the international baroque scene such as Max Emanuel Cencic, Franco Fagioli, Ann Hallenberg, Sandrine Piau, Anna Bonitatibus, Vivica Genaux, Karina Gauvin, Stefano Montanari and Christian Curnyn. From 2018/19 he serves as Director of Opera at Zürich Opera.
(photo by Felix Grunschloß)
