Zurich Opera Chorus

The Zurich Opera Chorus, which comprises 60 professional singers, takes part in up to 160 performances per season at Zurich Opera and thus serves as a cornerstone for the artistic ensemble. The members of the chorus have been deeply influenced musically by their collaboration with such conductors as Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Ferdinand Leitner, Fabio Luisi, Zubin Mehta, Nello Santi, and Franz Wel-ser-Möst. Directors of the caliber of Götz Friedrich, Andreas Homoki, Peter Konwitschny, Harry Kupfer, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Peter Stein, and Robert Wilson have made use of their talent as stage performers. In recent seasons the Chorus has gone on numerous tours throughout Europe and beyond; stops have included Tokyo (Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Verdi’s La traviata), London (three Wagner operas: Die Meistersinger, Tannhäuser, and Der fliegende Holländer), Paris (Rossini’s La Cenerentola and Schubert’s Fierabras), and Rome, where the singers celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Swiss Guard by performing Mozart’s Coronation Mass. Going by the name “International Chamber Vocalists,“ the Zurich Opera Chorus took part in a new recording of Bellini’s Norma under Giovanni Antonini, which won the 2014 ECHO Klassik Award. Jürg Hämmerli is the chorus master for this Lucerne performance of Falstaff. He completed his training at the Winterthur Conservatory and at the Academy for Pedagogical and Church Music in Lucerne. Since 1993 he has been serving as the choral director of Zurich Opera, where he has supervised more than 100 different productions to date.

August 2015