Regarded as one of the best specialists in French and Italian music, Patrick Fournillier has a career marked by great international prizes and experiences conducting the most important works of the symphonic and lyric repertoires with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras: Paris, Milan, Berlin, Zurich, Munich, Oslo, Valencia, Amsterdam, Salzburg Festival, Metropolitan Opera in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C, and others.
Following his debut at the Paris Opera House, he became music director of the Massenet Festival. He then headed the Toscanini Symphony Orchestra in Parma, Italy for six years, conducting mostly Verdi works.
Recent engagements include Cyrano de Bergerac at the Châtelet and Teatro alla Scala with Plácido Domingo, Manon at the Nice Opera, Valencia, and San Francisco, Faust at the Zürich Opera, Don Carlos at the Berlin Staatsoper, La traviata at the the Ravenna Festival, Werther at the Munich Staatsoper, Sydney, and Chicago, Samson & Dalila in Stockholm, Turandot in Antwerp, Valencia, and Warsaw, Iphigénie en Tauride and Thaïs in Barcelona, Valencia (with Plácido Domingo), Amsterdam, Mannheim, Don Giovanni and The Damnation of Faust with the Dresden Staashapelle, The Marriage of Figaro and Hamlet in Washington D.C., The Tales of Hoffmann at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and Helsinki, Lucia di Lammermoor and Carmen in Stuttgart and Oman for the inauguration of the Royal Opera House of Muscat, Rigoletto and La traviata at the Regio di Torino, Hamlet in Strasbourg, Lucia di Lammermoor in Chicago, La voix humaine and Suor Angelica in Seattle, Don Pasquale in Oslo, and Il trovatore, Tosca, Il corsaro in Milan.
Maestro Fournillier has conducted symphonic concerts in London, Milan, Berlin, Vienna, Oslo, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Moscow, St Petersburg, Beijing.
For the Polish National Opera, he lead Puccini’s Turandot and Manon Lescaut, Debussy’s Pelléas & Mélisande, and Verdi’s Aida (in Warsaw and Dubai). Most recently, he conducted Rigoletto, Tosca, Werther, MacMillan’s ballet Mayerling, Puccini’s La Bohème, Krzysztof Pastor’s ballet Dracula, Chorus Opera, and the ballet Giselle. He has been the music director of the Polish National Opera, Teatr Wielki, Warsaw since the 2020/21 season.
(photo: artist’s archive)
