Rolando Villazón

Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer is Music Director of the Swiss Orchestra, Artistic Director of the Bern Bach Choir and from 2022, Artistic Director of Andermatt Music at the new Andermatt Concert Hall. She is an active international guest conductor and has worked with major ensembles around the world. In recent seasons Lena-Lisa has toured with the Swiss Orchestra and soloists Oliver Schnyder, Heinz Holliger, Marie-Claude Chappuis and Alina Pogostkina as well as taking charge of concerts with the Capriccio Baroque Orchestra. She has appeared with the Bern Bach Choir and Leipzig Chamber Orchestra at the Leipzig Bach Festival. The current season will take her to the Sinfonietta de Lausanne, Sinfonietta Cracovia, Bern Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Corund Lucerne and will see her return to the Capriccio Baroque Orchestra. In addition to her practical music making, Lena-Lisa is a known for her research on interpretation and reception history with a particular focus on Gustav Mahler and Felix Weingartner. Born in Zurich in 1983, Lena-Lisa studied violin and conducting at Basel Conservatory, as well as musicology and economics at Basel University. Her PhD thesis took as its subject the recording history of Mahler’s Symphony no 4. She deepened her studies with Sylvia Caduff and Sir Roger Norrington and was assistant conductor to Claudio Abbado. She held scholarships from the Swiss Study Foundation, the Deutsche Bank Foundation Academy Opera Today and the Ernst Göhner Foundation.

Through his uniquely compelling performances on the world’s most important stages, Rolando Villazón has firmly established himself as one of the leading artists of our day. His versatility is peerless as he maintains successful careers as a stage director, novelist, artistic director and radio and TV personality next to his on-stage career. Born in Mexico City, Rolando Villazón quickly made a name for himself on the international music scene after winning several prizes at Plácido Domingo’s “Operalia” competition in 1999. This was followed in the same year by his European debut as Des Grieux (Manon) in Genoa and debuts as Alfredo (La traviata) at the Paris Opera and as Macduff (Macbeth) at the Staatsoper Berlin. Since then, he has been a regular guest at the State Operas of Berlin, Munich and Vienna, La Scala in Milan, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (London), the Metropolitan Opera New York and the Salzburg Festival. The 2022-23 season brought Rolando Villazón to some of the world’s most important stages, in repertoire ranging from baroque to contemporary music. He made his role debut as Loge in Das Rheingold in a new production of the tetralogy directed by Dmitry Tcherniakov and conducted by Christian Thielemann. Later in the season, he portrayed one of his signature roles, Monteverdi’s Orfeo in Dresden, Bayreuth and Santa Fe as well as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 2007 he became an exclusive artist for Deutsche Grammophon. He has sold over 2 million albums worldwide and recorded over 20 CDs and DVDs which have received numerous prizes.