Name Philippe Auguin Role Music director | Education Conservatory of Nice | |
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Making of Opera: The Ring - The Maestro
Philippe Auguin is the music director of the Washington National Opera and the Kennedy Center Orchestra in Washington D.C.
Auguin has conducted performances in several opera houses, including the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Teatro Colón, the Bavarian State Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona.
As a symphonic conductor, he has led concert performances with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Dresden, the Orchestre National de France, the BBC Symphony Orchestra London, the Royal Philharmonic, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the China Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the NHK Philharmonic in Tokyo, the KBS Symphony Orchestra, etc.
Auguin has appeared at international festivals including the Salzburg Festival, the Ravenna Festival, the Hong Kong Festival, the Sydney Olympic Festival, the Savonlinna Opera Festival, Kissinger Musiksommer, the Baden-Baden Sommerfestival, Beethoven Fest Bonn, and others. In 2005, he brought the first complete cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen to China at the International Beijing Music Festival.
In 2015, Auguin recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic the opera sequences (Le Nozze di Figaro, Turandot) used in the film Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, directed by Christopher McQuarrie, starring Tom Cruise, and Rebecca Ferguson (Paramount Pictures).
Auguin was made an Honorary Consul of the French Republic in 2002. For his contribution to German culture, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit of the German Republic in 2005.
Auguin studied conducting in Vienna and Florence. He was the assistant conductor and musical assistant of Herbert von Karajan until Karajan's death in July 1989 during rehearsals of Un Ballo in Maschera at the Salzburger Festival. From this date, Sir Georg Solti chose him as his assistant conductor for opera productions and concerts in Salzburg, Vienna, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Milan.
He conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in Westminster Abbey at the memorial for Sir Georg Solti in 1998.