Conductor:  Moritz Gnann (Germany)
Director: Dejan Proshev

Performing:
Max Emanuel Cencic (Croatia)
Vasily Khoroshev (Russia)
Ray Chenez (USA)

Performing: The Orchestra of  Macedonian Philharmonics and Macedonian Opera and Ballet

Max Emanuel Cencic

“Mr. Cencic is blessed with the finest countertenor voice of our day”(Opernwelt)
In recent years Max Emanuel Cencic has become recognised as one of the world’s supreme countertenors. He first became known internationally as a member of the Vienna Boys’ Choir, before launching his solo career in 1992 as a soprano, and from 2001 as a countertenor. He now performs at such major opera houses as the Vienna State Opera, the Theater an der Wien, the Bavarian State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Liceu, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and La Monnaie. His concert venues have included Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Carnegie Hall, the Barbican, the Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Musikverein, the Tchaikovsky Hall Moscow, and Tokyo’s Opera Nomori, with festival appearances in Ludwigsburg, Potsdam, Halle (Händel Festspiele), Spoleto (Due Mondi), Ambronay, Eisenstadt, and Dubrovnik. He collaborates regularly with such conductors as William Christie, René Jacobs, Ottavio Dantone, Diego Fasolis, Jean-Christophe Spinosi, George Petrou, Emmanuelle Haïm, Fabio Biondi and Riccardo Muti.
Early milestones in his career included his Nerone (L’incoronazione di Poppea) in Basel in 2003, (Opernwelt: Best New Singer of the Year), and the Herald in the world premiere of Aribert Reimann’s Medea at the Vienna State Opera in 2010. Especially noteworthy in 2011-12 were appearances at the Liceu, alongside Plácido Domingo, a US tour with Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and solo recitals at the Palais de Versailles, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Handel Festival in Karlsruhe, Zagreb’s Lisinski Hall and the Onassis Hall, Athens.
As Artistic Director of Parnassus Arts Productions, Cencic has been responsible for the conception, oversight and performance of important works of the Italian baroque stage, including the sensational rediscovery of Leonardo Vinci’s last opera Artaserse . This was hugely important in his 2012-13 season, and, as in the original 1730 production in Rome, this was an all-male cast, featuring five counter-tenors. Cencic played the challenging role of Mandane, and was rewarded with rave reviews, both personally and for all concerned: at every venue from Paris to Vienna the performances received a standing ovation, and this production has now received eleven international awards, including two Echo Klassik (CD 2013, DVD 2014), as well as two 2 Grammy nominations.
2013-2014 saw a wildly successful tour of his Venezia programme in venues from St Petersburg to Montpellier, Cuvilliés-Theater (Munich) and  a triumphant return to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, while other solo included the Grand Théâtre (Avignon), the Frankfurt Opera, the Salle Pleyel in Paris, and the Philharmonie in Cologne. He was the protagonist of Handel’s opera Alessandro in a further major European tour, after the first performance of which in Versailles he was awarded the prestigious Arabella de Platine by forumopera.com, in recognition of his outstanding performances during 2012.
His extensive CD catalogue features several award-winners. Faramondo (Virgin Classics 2009) received both a Diapason découverte and Diapason d’Or, amongst 11 awards. Mezzo-soprano (EMI/Virgin Classics 2010), a recital of Handel arias,  received outstanding reviews, a prize from the French magazine Télérama, Croatia’s Porin award, the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and the Orphée d’Or (Académie du Disque Lyrique). DVD releases include Landi’s Il Sant’Alessio, (Virgin Classics 2008), and Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (Teatro Real, Madrid 2011). Both were conducted by William Christie, who also directed Cencic’s acclaimed album Duetti (2011). In 2012 this, and a recording of Gluck’s Ezio, , with Cencic as Valentiniano, both won Germany’s prestigious ECHO Klassik prize. His lead performance in Decca’s 2012 recording of Handel’s Alessandro has already garnered six major awards, including Opera CD of the Year for 2013 from operaawards.com and Opera Production of the year on Mezzo TV. It was rapidly followed by the sensational discs of Vinci’s Artaserse (EMI/Virgin Classics 2012 – ECHO Klassik 2013; now also released on DVD – ECHO Klassik 2014), and his virtuoso recital Venezia (EMI/Virgin Classics 2013). Artaserse, Alessandro andVenezia have all been broadcast Europe-wide on several satellite TV channels. His recent solo recital debut disc for DECCA, entitled Rokoko and dedicated to the music of Johann Adolf Hasse, has already been awarded a Diapason d’or (arte.tv), a Diamant de l’Opéra and a Melómano de oro, and received rave reviews during its extensive performance tour (Opéra de Versailles, Metz, Bordeaux, Opéra de Monte Carlo, Bordeaux, Karlsruhe Opera, Istanbul, Cuvilliés-Theater Munich); this tour will continue next season.

Of immediate and special interest is the recording of Hasse’s Siroe, issued by DECCA in October 2014. In this, Cencic sings the title-role, but is also, and for the first time, stage director for a live production, which will tour Europe during the coming season, beginning in Versailles in November. 2014-15 will also see Cencic in further concert performances of Handel’s Tamerlano (role of Andronico), and this production will appear on CD as well. Alessandro will tour again (Beaux-arts Brussels, Tchaikovsky Hall Moscow, Handel Festival Halle), while Rokoko will be heard in Karlsruhe, Istanbul, Metz, Monte Carlo, Bordeaux, Versailles and Munich, and Siroe in Versailles, Vienna, Moscow, Amsterdam and Budapest. It will be a busy year for recordings: a new solo CD Arie Napoletane, Handel’s Radamisto (title-role), a glamorous Gala of Countertenors, and another unknown opera by Leonardo Vinci: Il Catone in Utica.

Max Emanuel Cencic’s iconic status as a torchbearer for an entire generation of countertenors was encapsulated by his sensational performances in the title role of Vivaldi’s opera Farnace, which he sang during the 2011-12 season at several prestigious European venues, with an even wider success on mezzoTV. His recording of the work (Virgin Classics 2011) received rapturous critical response. The review in L’Opera was typical: “This aria [Ricordati che sei] would be enough to set the seal on Cencic’s greatness, putting him right at the heart of the best of today’s baroque singing and, indisputably, of the new countertenor era, setting standards as its leading light … Mention must also be made … of the tragic spirit invoked in Gelido in ogni vena by vocalism that is extraordinary, not only in passages where agility is the dominant factor, but which can also bring colour to the tragic tension of such moments, with an awareness of all the expressive possibilities of a countertenor voice, that owes its exceptional charisma to a roundness of tone unparallelled in voices of this type.”

As another review recently put it: “Cencic … the undisputed singing god of the evening”.

Ray Chenez

“In a touch of luxury casting, Ray Chenez sang radiantly” – The New York Times

Winner of the prestigious 2014 George London Award, Ray Chenez is rapidly establishing a major international career in opera. He has been called “luxury casting” by the New York Times, having “excellent connection to text, superb vocal control and spotless diction” by Opera News, and having a “dramatic soprano voice which oozes potential” by Opera Britannia.
He made his debut in Europe with Parnassus Arts Productions in the role of Marzia in Leonardo Vinci’s Catone in Utica alongside Max Emanuel Cencic and Franco Fagioli at the Opéra Royal de Versailles, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, and the Bergen International Festival with Riccardo Minasi and Il Pomo d’Oro in the 2014-15 season. In the 2015-16 season, he makes his debut at the Roman Athenaeum in Bucharest, Romania and the Theater an der Wien as Marzia in Catone in Utica; he returns to the Opéra Royal de Versailles and make his debut at the Opéra national de Lorraine à Nancy in the roles of Nutrice and Amore in a new production of Luigi Rossi’s Orfeo under the baton of Raphaël Pichon, and makes his debut with Opera Omaha as Athamas in Handel’s Semele under the baton of Stephen Stubbs.
In the 2014-15 season he made his debut in Lincoln Center as the Sorceress in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and reprised the role of Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro with Nickel City Opera, a role he received rave reviews for in his Canadian debut with Pacific Opera Victoria during the 2013-2014 season – CBC Radio stated he “captured the audience’s heart,” the Times Colonist reported “What Chenez does in a mezzo’s register is technically amazing and often affecting, and his Cherubino is at once hilarious and sympathetic,” and CVV Magazine hailed him for his “stunning countertenor and lanky gesticulations.”
Ray Chenez was born in the town of Lockport, NY (USA), and completed his vocal studies at the State University of New York at Fredonia and Florida State University. He is a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council District Auditions among many other competitions. As a studio artist with Opera Santa Barbara in California, he covered the title role in Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice. In addition to his work on the opera stage, he has also performed the concert repertoire of Handel, Bach, and Bernstein.

Vasily Khoroshev

Vasily Khoroshev was born in Russia. He studied until 2011 at the Moscow Conservatory by Professor Petr Skusnichenko. He has won the first prize in the third international competition Modern Art and Education. He made his first appearance on the stage in 2006 as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, or The Day of Madness) in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. In 2010, he sang the part of the Spirit in Dido and Aeneas conducted by Gabriele Garido in Opera de Lausanne (Lausanne, Switzerland) and the Opera de Vichy; he could be seen as Artemis in Henze’s Phaedra in German Opera House in Duisburg on Rhein. He went to the international concert tour with Carmina Burana stage version by the theatrical group La Fura dels Baus.

You can hear him as Cleone in Handel’s opera Alessandro (Decca Classics Catalogue). This role in the opera conducted by George Petrou was also performed by Khoroshev in 2013 in Megaron (the Athens Concert Hall), in Opera Royal de Versailles (France), in the Salle Pleyel (Paris), at the Enescu International Competition in Bucharest, in the State Theatre of  Wiesbaden, in The Royal Concertgebouw (concert hall) in Amsterdam and in the Vienna State Opera. Khoroshev also debuted in the opening night of Klaus Lang Rappresentazione  di anima et corpo in the Opera Theatre of Frankfurt.

In the early 2014, the singer debuted as Tolomeo in Handel’s Opera Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar) in the Theatre of Klagenfurt. He has been invited to the State Theatre of Darmstadt for Monteverdi’s Ulisse for the 2014/15 season. The young countertenor is engaged in Moscow Tchaikovsky Hall, in the Bozar (The Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels), in the Handel’s festival Hall (as Cleone in Handel’s Alessandro). He will perform with Carmina Burana Concerts in Madrid and Santiago de Chile.

Moritz Gnann, conductor

After three years as Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Moritz Gnann took up the position as Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the season 2015/16 and 2016/17. His debut with the BSO at Tanglewood in August 2016 will include Mozart’s Jeunehomme concerto (soloist: Nelson Freire) and Mahler’s 1st symphony. He will furthermore conduct three subscription concerts at the Boston Symphony Hall in November 2016, featuring the legendary Menahem Pressler.

In addition to his activities in Boston, he keeps a close relationship with the Deutsche Oper Berlin appearing as guest conductor in various productions. He opened the 2015/16 season at the Deutsche Oper with Berlioz’ Romeo et Juliette and will conduct the revivals of L’elisir d’amore and Billy Budd in 16/17. After a successful debut with the Staatskapelle Dresden he has been reinvited to the Semperoper for Die Zauberflöte and Hänsel und Gretel.

Moritz Gnann started his professional career in 2007 when he joined the Theater Aachen as a repetiteur and conductor. From 2009 until 2011 he was musical assistant to Julia Jones at Teatro Nacional de Saõ Carlos in Lisbon, conducting operas such as Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti as well as various concert programmes. As Kapellmeister and Assistant to the Generalmusikdirektor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, he conducted Die Zauberflöte, Cosí fan tutte, Hänsel und Gretel, Madama Butterfly, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Rigoletto and Billy Budd as well as other projects. Mahlermania, a production that combines the biography of Gustav Mahler with his music was recorded for the European TV channel Arte and was toured under the musical direction of Moritz Gnann to the Opéra de Rouen and to Uijeongbu Music Theatre Festival in South Korea. He opened the 2014/2015 season at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with a new production of Iannis Xenakis’ Oresteia to highest critical acclaim.

Moritz Gnann was born in Tuebingen, Germany, and studied conducting at the Universität der Künste in Berlin and at the Musikhochschule Dresden, graduating with distinction. He gained further experience through active participation in masterclasses with Gianluigi Gelmetti, Sylvain Cembreling, Hartmut Haenchen, Bernhard Haitink and Diego Masson.

He assisted Sir Simon Rattle on Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Christian Thielemann on Der Rosenkavalier at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. He is a regular member of the Bayreuther Festspiele cast assisting Andris Nelsons on Lohengrin since 2010. In the 2016 summer he is going to work together with Maestro Nelsons on the new production of Parsifal.

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