Frédéric Chaslin’s debut performance in Russia

Renowned French conductor Frédéric Chaslin will grace the stage of the Mikhailovsky Theatre with his first ever performance in Russia! On 6 and 10 October, he will conduct the productions of La Juive and Pagliacci, featuring legendary American tenor Neil Shicoff.

Shicoff’s and Chaslin’s creative partnership goes back several years. Their lists of credits include dozens of joint performances at the world’s preeminent opera venues and several noteworthy audio recordings. One of their most recent audio projects was recorded last year at Shicoff’s gala concert, held at the Wiener Staatsoper to commemorate his 40-year-long artistic career.

“Neil Shicoff is an unparalleled artist,” said Chaslin. “He sings with such passion and poignancy, as if it’s his last time. This is what so often thrusts audiences into a state of emotional shock. Compared with other opera singers, as both a musician and an actor, he is in a completely different dimension.”

Since 1997, Chaslin has been a regular guest conductor at the Wiener Staatsoper, where he has conducted over 110 performances of the theatre’s main repertoire. His artistic resume includes major festivals in New York, Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, and Venice. The maestro has worked with the world’s leading orchestras, including all of Paris’s major collectives, the Vienna and London symphony orchestras, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. For the past five years, he has been the Music Director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.

Having stepped up to the conductor’s podium several decades ago, Chaslin never abandoned his career as an instrumentalist, and continues performing as a concert pianist. He has also successfully established himself as a composer, authoring orchestral compositions, operas, and several film scores. Arguably, his most widely known opus among the general public is the composition Diva Dance, sung by the alien opera diva Plavalaguna in Luc Besson’s film The Fifth Element.

A conductor, pianist, and composer, Chaslin is also known for writing several books on musicology, which have been published in French, German, and English. In his latest book, the maestro focuses on modern aspects of music and the public’s regard of works of modern composers.