During the 2012/13 season General Music Director Sebastian Weigle will repeat his wonderful reading of the Ring des Nibelungen (OehmsClassics CDs available) and conduct new productions of Humperdinck’s Königskinder, Prokofiev’s Der Spieler/The Gambler and Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, as well as performances of Verdi’s Otello. He will also continue the series of early Wagner operas: Rienzi, in concert in the Alte Oper, follows on from Die Feen/The Faries and Das Liebesverbot/The Ban on Love. All three works will be issued on CD in the relatively near future. Born in Berlin, he made his debut at Oper Frankfurt in 2002/03 with Salome, returning for a new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten for which he was voted „Conductor of the Year 2003“ by Opernwelt magazine. He was General Music Director of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona from 2004-2009 before taking up the same position in Frankfurt in 2008/09. Operas (all new productions) with which he has enjoyed great success here in recent seasons include Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame, d’Albert’s Tiefland, Strauss’ Arabella, Verdi’s Otello, Korngold’s Die tote Stadt and Reimann’s Lear (the last two mentioned works are also now available on OehmsClassics CDs). A former Staatskappellmeister at the Berlin State Opera he has also enjoyed tremendous success at the Semperoper in Dresden, the Vienna State Opera, Cincinnati and Sydney opera companies and the Metropolitan Opera New York. He conducted all performances of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Bayreuth Festival from 2007-2011. He will conduct this work again, at the 2013 Spring Festival in Tokyo.