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JEAN-PHILIPPE CLARAC and OLIVIER DELŒUIL
Co-Artistic Directors and Stage Directors
Jean-Philippe Clarac /
Olivier Delœuil 		Pierre
Lorieau		 Alexander
Ebin 		Yves
Abel 		 

Recently appointed co-Artistic Directors of OFNY, Jean-Philippe Clarac and Olivier Delœuil will collaborate with Yves Abel, the company’s Music Director, to continue OFNY’s exploration into lesser-known French operatic repertory and to assist in developing new programming initiatives.

Since 2001, their work for OFNY has included staged productions of two American premieres: the chamber version of Rameau’s Castor et Pollux and the original piano version of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. They have also staged Pascal Dusapin’s To Be Sung (the American premiere of this contemporary chamber opera as a featured event of the "Sounds French" Festival organized by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy), Yvonne Printemps: A French Diva Unveiled (an original production portraying the life and career of the legendary French star of operetta and film), and Les Pèlerins de la Mecque (Gluck’s final opéra-comique). The directing duo have also presented Desperately Seeking Thaïs, and Desperately Seeking Carmen, original multimedia presentations based on the title characters in the operas of Massenet and Bizet, respectively.

Their directing credits also include highly acclaimed new productions of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette for Spoleto USA Festival and Pittsburgh Opera, Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann for Opéra de Nantes/Angers, a new production of Auber’s Manon Lescaut at Ireland’s Wexford Festival, semi-staged Christmas concerts for the Orchestre National de Lyon with French soloists Patricia Petibon, soprano, and Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, tenor, as well as a multimedia performance that inaugurated the opening night of the Lyon orchestra’s 2005/2006 season.

Future engagements include a new production of Gounod’s Faust for Opéra National de Bordeaux and a multimedia performance of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique for the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées.

Graduates of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, they have devoted additional study to their special fields of interest, fine arts history and staging history, and now present a lecture series there entitled "Opera and Politics: A Study of European Civilization."

In 1996 they were prizewinners in a competition of short films sponsored by the German – French cultural television channel ARTE. Since 1997, they have directed several short films and opera documentaries for broadcast on European televisions. Their six-part documentary series on the history of operetta was part of the "Classique en Images" Documentary Festival (Auditorium du Musée du Louvre, 2002).
   
 
PIERRE LORIEAU
General Director
Jean-Philippe Clarac /
Olivier Delœuil 		Pierre
Lorieau		 Alexander
Ebin 		Yves
Abel 		 

Pierre brings to the general director position a broad range of skills as a result of his background in opera and his career as a corporate lawyer. In the early 1990’s Pierre performed as a baritone in opera and concert throughout Canada and in the United States. With OFNY, he appeared in two operettas by Offenbach: as Don Pedro in La Perichole, and as Ajax 2 in La Belle Helene. For the past ten years he has pursued a legal career in New York City -- most recently with Salans, the Paris-based law firm. Pierre’s operatic background and experience in the law allow him to combine his concern for artistic matters with the pragmatism of a business lawyer. He looks forward to leading OFNY in its goal of continued growth and expanded programming.

   
 
ALEXANDER EBIN
Associate Director
Jean-Philippe Clarac /
Olivier Delœuil 		Pierre
Lorieau		 Alexander
Ebin 		Yves
Abel 		 

Zander, a native New Yorker, is a recent graduate of Brown University where he received a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Music. At Brown he was heavily involved with Brown Opera Productions both as a performer and a member of their producing board, and he recently completed an internship at Glimmerglass Opera. Zander will support Jean-Philippe, Olivier, Yves and Pierre in our continued efforts to expand the company’s programming and to strengthen our sources of corporate, foundation, and private support.
   
 
YVES ABEL
Music Director and Founder
Jean-Philippe Clarac /
Olivier Delœuil 		Pierre
Lorieau		 Alexander
Ebin 		Yves
Abel 		 

Yves Abel has quickly established himself as one of his generation’s most compelling conductors in both the operatic and symphonic repertories. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor of Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he recently conducted a new production of Simon Boccanegra as well as performances of Le nozze di Figaro and La traviata, and will conduct new productions of Tiefland, Carmen, and Don Giovanni in upcoming seasons.

A frequent guest with the world’s great opera companies, he has led acclaimed performances at the Metropolitan Opera (Carmen with Denyce Graves and Plácido Domingo and Il barbiere di Siviglia), Vienna State Opera (L’elisir d’amore), Deutsche Oper Berlin (a new production of Don Pasquale as well as Werther and Dialogues des Carmélites), Opéra National de Paris (Faust), Lyric Opera of Chicago (L’elisir d’amore and Il barbiere di Siviglia), Netherlands Opera (a new production of Dialogues des Carmélites directed by Robert Carsen and Il barbiere di Siviglia), San Francisco Opera (a new production of Hamlet), Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu (a new production of Roberto Devereux and Madama Butterfly), Naples’ Teatro San Carlo (Madama Butterfly and a new production of Faust), Teatro Comunale di Bologna (a new production of Werther directed by Liliana Cavani), Royal Danish Opera (Un ballo in maschera and L’elisir d’amore), Dallas Opera (a new production of Ermione), Seattle Opera (new productions of The End of the Affair, Vanessa and Die Fledermaus, and La Cenerentola), Teatro Lirico di Cagliari in Sardinia (a new production of Carmen), Lisbon’s Teatro Nacional de São Carlos (Il turco in Italia), Santa Fe Opera (new productions of L’italiana in Algeri and Così fan tutte), England’s Opera North (a new production of Così fan tutte and Don Carlos), Welsh National Opera (Leonore), Bilbao’s Asociacíon de la Opera (Oberto, Manon and Il barbiere di Siviglia), and The Juilliard Opera Center (L’Enfant prodigue and L’Enfant et les sortilèges).

In the 2006/2007 season Mr. Abel returned to Vienna State Opera (a new production of La Fille du régiment by Laurant Pelly with Nathalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez) and made his debut at Teatro alla Scala in Milan (La Fille du régiment). In fall 2007 he will make his debut with Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse where he will conduct a new production of Le Roi d’Ys to open the theater’s 2007/2008 season. His return engagements in upcoming seasons include Vienna State Opera (Madama Butterfly and L’italiana in Algeri), Gran Teatre del Liceu (La Fille du régiment), Bilbao Opera (La Fille du régiment, and Norma), Teatro Lirico di Cagliari (Andrea Chenier), Teatro San Carlo (La traviata, Carmen, and Lucia di Lammermoor), and Théâtre du Capitole (Les Contes d’Hoffmann).

He has conducted at some of the world’s most prestigious festivals, including the Glyndebourne Opera Festival (Le Comte Ory), the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro (Il barbiere di Siviglia and new productions of Matilde di Shabran and Adina), the Spoleto Festival Italy (Les Mamelles de Tirésias), the Spoleto Festival USA (Luisa Miller), Switzerland’s Gstaad Festival (Così fan tutte), the Llangollen Festival in Wales, and the Caramoor International Music Festival.

Mr. Abel’s orchestral engagements include recent debuts with Orquestra Nacional do Porto (Portugal), Montreal Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Netherlands Philharmonic at the Royal Concertgebow, Orchestre National de Lyon, Toronto Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, and the orchestras of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Teatro San Carlo (Naples), the Teatro Massimo (Palermo), Teatro Lirico di Cagliari (Sardinia). He has also led the Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, the Bochum Symphony in Germany, and the National Symphony of Ireland, among others. In Canada he has conducted the National Arts Center Orchestra on numerous occasions and recently appeared with the Nova Scotia Symphony.

His recordings include Massenet’s Thaïs for London/Decca with Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, and Giuseppe Sabbatini, released in 2000 to critical acclaim; a complete recording of Werther for Decca released in 2005; an English-language Madame Butterfly on Chandos with the Philharmonic Orchestra; C’est ça la vie, a selection of arias from French light opera with mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra released on Erato in 2002; and French Touch, a collaboration on French opera and operetta with French soprano Patricia Petibon released by Decca in 2003. He is featured as pianist on Souvenir de Printemps with soprano Amy Burton, released in August 2005 by Harbinger Records.

Mr. Abel has won significant critical acclaim for his achievements as Music Director of Opéra Français de New York, which he founded in 1988 to breathe new life into operatic rarities from the French repertoire. Recent productions include the American premiere of the original piano version of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, the American premiere production of To Be Sung by the contemporary French composer Pascal Dusapin, Saint-Saëns’ La Princesse jaune, Bizet’s Djamileh, Gluck’s Les Pèlerins de la Mecque, Hérold’s Zampa, Poulenc’s La Voix humaine, and Offenbach’s La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein. Among the other works produced by OFNY are Offenbach’s Barbe-Bleue and La Périchole, Bizet’s La Jolie Fille de Perth and Le Docteur Miracle, Cherubini’s Médée and Les Deux Journées, Chabrier’s L’Étoile, Donizetti’s La Favorite, Milhaud’s Le Pauvre Matelot and Esther de Carpentras, Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice and Iphigénie en Aulide; Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias, and Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict.
   
   
© Opéra Français de New York, 2008.