American born conductor JOHN FIORE begins the 2009/2010 season as the new Music Director of The Norwegian Opera & Ballet (Den Norske Opera & Ballett), the company’s first Music Director in over a decade.  As Music Director, Maestro Fiore is the artistic chief of the company’s orchestra and chorus, and performs in opera, ballet, symphonic, and chamber music performances, in diverse and divergeant styles from baroque to the most contemporary.  During his first season, Mr. Fiore will participate in all aspects of the performing lives of the company’s musical forces, including leading a new opera production, Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, new ballet, the full length story ballet Cinderella to Prokofiev’s music, as well as a series of symphonic and choral concerts with the DNOB orchestra and orchestra, in addition to performing chamber music with its musicians.

Elsewhere this season, Mr. Fiore returns to Prague in the fall for the National Theater’s revival performances of Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin.  In the Spring of 2010, he will lead a new production of Wagner Parsifal at the Grand Théâtre de Genève, followed by a tour with Italy’s famed Teatro La Fenice (Venice) to Abu Dhabi for the 2nd season of the Abu Dhabi Classics series.  In Europe he is the conductor for three different “competitions” for young vocal talent: Norway’s Queen Sonja competition, and in Germany both the ARD Competition (Munich), and Bertelsmann Competition (Gütersloh).  In the US, Mr. Fiore makes his Nashville Symphony debut in October 2009.  

Last season, 2008/2009, Mr. Fiore completed his tenth and final season as Chief Conductor of the Deutsche Oper-am-Rhein, where he kept an intensive and extensive schedule conducting in the company’s two houses in the neighboring Rhineland cities of Düsseldorf and Duisburg.  Highlights of his final season included new productions of Richard Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten,  Dvorak  Rusalka, and Janacek From the House of the Dead, and a season long “parade” of the many memorable productions he had premiered during the preceding decade.  It included revivals of Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande,  Verdi Don Carlos, a complete Wagner Ring cycle, and culminated in a week long Janacek cycle of 5 different operas, all conducted by Mr. Fiore within one week.

Maestro Fiore was also the Generalmusikdirektor of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker for eight seasons, coinciding with his tenure at the Deutsch Oper-am-Rhein, and ended his final season in 2007/2008 with an highly acclaimed performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, “The Symphony of a Thousand.”

Particularly well known among the international opera houses, Mr. Fiore was frequent guest of the Metropolitan Opera for more than a decade, leading over one hundred performances of nearly a dozen operas, among them the MET’s première production of Dvorak's Rusalka, (1993, reviving it again in 1997) as well as Aida, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, La Bohème, Ballo in Maschera, Carmen, and most recently, Tosca.    

In Germany, he often appears often at Munich’s Bavarian State Opera (Un Ballo in Maschera, Aida, Nabucco, Der Fliegende Holländer, Tosca, Carmen), and the Dresden State Opera (Arabella, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Nabucco, Aida, La Traviata, La Cenerentola).  Prior to his Deutsche Oper-am-Rhein appointment, Mo. Fiore also conducted often at the Cologne Opera, the company where he made his German debut in 1990 with Manon Lescaut.  He returned there many times for a diverse repertoire of Strauss, Wagner, Verdi, Puccini and Janacek, and also conducted the city’s historic and renowned Gürzenich Orchester in many symphonic programs.  

In Italy, he has appeared at leading opera houses (Genoa: La Bohème and La Gioconda; Rome La Traviata), and in the United States, has long enjoyed relationships with both the Chicago Lyric and San Francisco Operas, and also has been to the Houston Grand Opera to lead Tannhäuser (2001).   

In recent seasons Mr. Fiore has also been exploring seminal twentieth century works – he is nearing completion of the complete cycle of the major Janacek operas, and has conducted Berg Lulu and Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande, to name but two.  In summer 2003 led the world prèmiere of Bright Sheng Madame Mao (Santa Fe Opera, another company with which he has had a long history), and in January 2005 conducted the highly successful world premiere of Christian Jost Vipern for the DOR.   

Born in New York City into a musical family, Mr. Fiore received his earliest musical training from his father, a pianist and choral director, and his mother, a singer.  His family moved to Seattle, where he studied piano, cello and other string instruments.  Mr. Fiore began his professional musical activities at age 14 as a pianist and coach for the Seattle Opera's annual production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.  He later attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.  In 1981, he joined the staff of the Santa Fe Opera, where he developed an affinity for the operas of Richard Strauss.   

Within a short period of time, he became a prized assistant in North America's three most respected companies - the San Francisco, Chicago Lyric and Metropolitan Operas.  In the summer of 1986 he went to Europe, assisting Zubin Mehta for Die Meistersinger in Florence, and then to the Bayreuth Festival, where he worked with Daniel Barenboim on Tristan und Isolde, returning the next year for Parsifal and Tristan and again in 1988 for the Harry Kupfer Ring production.  During this period he also freelanced as an assistant to the great Leonard Bernstein.  Also in 1986, he was ready to begin his own conducting career, and he made his debut at the San Francisco Opera, conducting Gounod's Faust.  

In 1990 he embarked on an international symphonic career, making debuts on three continents.  Since then Mr. Fiore has continued to build his repertoire and orchestral relationships each season.   In the summer of 1996, stepping in for Robert Shaw, Mr. Fiore made a critically acclaimed debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl conducting Verdi’s Requiem.  In North America, he has since conducted the Boston Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and Toronto Symphony, to name a few.  In Europe, orchestral engagements include the Dresden Staatskapelle, Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Bamberger Sinfoniker, Gürzenich Orchester, Orchester Rheinland-Pfalz, (in Germany); Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Firenze and Accademia di Santa Cecilia (in Italy); Orchestre National de Lyon and Orchestre Philharmonique de Montpellier (in France), and Basle Radio Symphony and Orchestra Radio Svizzera Italiana (Switzerland).

Last updated July 2009. Contact Opus 3 Artists for the most up-to-date version.