Biography | John Fiore - American Operatic & Symphonic Conductor

A Respected Leader of Operas and Orchestras Worldwide.

A seasoned conductor well-known among the international opera houses, John Fiore is praised for his musicality and his skillful expression on the podium. Maestro Fiore has led acclaimed performances in a diverse range of symphonic and operatic repertoire with the some of the finest orchestras and opera companies in the world. He is a frequent guest conductor at many of the foremost opera houses in Europe and the United States, with which he enjoys enduring relationships. After appearing at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in June 2019 to conduct Tosca, highlights of Mr. Fiore’s 2019-20 season included Eugene Onegin at the Royal Swedish Opera, the important AIDS Opera Gala event at Deutsche Oper Berlin (which was televised), a new production of Samson et Dalila at the Washington National Opera, as well as Fidelio, Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Die Fledermaus at the Semperoper Dresden. Even though his appearances have been somewhat limited since the start of the pandemic, he has appeared with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, L’Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and conducted a new production of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta at the Swedish Royal Opera in October 2021. He also recently conducted (and recorded for BR Klassik) the complete music of Beethoven’s Egmont at the Prinzregententheater in Munich with the Münchner Rundfunk Orchester, with the soprano Christina Landshamer and the actor August Zirner. Other highlights of 2022 have been a new production of Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi at the Royal Swedish Opera, and Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, which has been released on DVD on the Naxos/RBB label, and a major revival of Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots at the Dresden Semperoper. Highlights of the 2023-2024 season were the premiere of Puccini’s Il Trittico at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, taken over on four days notice, to rave reviews, and his very successful debut with Puccini’s Tosca at the Staatsoper unter den Linden, also in Berlin.

Mo. Fiore has been the Music Director of several leading opera companies including the Norwegian Opera, where he served from 2009 through 2015 as the institution’s first music director in over a decade, and the first in the new opera house. There, he conducted on average over thirty performances of opera, ballet, and symphonic concerts per season, including several world premieres. He was also the former Music Director of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein from 1999 to 2009, where he kept an intensive and extensive schedule conducting in the company’s two houses in the neighboring Rhineland cities of Düsseldorf and Duisburg. Throughout his decade-long tenure there, he led more than sixty different operas in diverse repertoire covering German, Italian, Russian, French, and Czech languages. Highlights of his tenure there were several complete Wagner Ring Cycles, and a festival of five different Janáček operas in five consecutive nights. He also conducted Die Meistersinger and Der Rosenkavalier on six consecutive evenings when he took the DOR on tour to the Savonlinna Festival in 2002. Concurrent with his appointment at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Mr. Fiore was also General Music Director of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, and led full seasons of symphonic concert repertoire, with highlights such as a semi-annual Beethoven Ninth Symphony, and other major works such as the Berlioz La Damnation de Faust and Schönberg’s massive Gurrelieder.

Mr. Fiore continues to be a regular guest at many of the world’s leading opera houses. In Europe, he has appeared at the Bayerische Staatsoper (Un ballo in maschera, Aida, Nabucco, Der Fliegende Holländer, Tosca, Carmen), Semperoper Dresden (Die Walküre, Arabella, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Nabucco, Aida, La traviata, La cenerentola), Deutsche Oper Berlin (Turandot, La forza del destino), Rome Opera (La traviata), Teatro San Carlo (Rusalka), Teatro Carlo Fenice (La bohème, La Gioconda), Zurich Opera (Tristan und Isolde), Grand Théâtre de Genève (Parsifal, Andrea Chénier, Nabucco), Opéra National de Bordeaux (Norma), and the National Theatre in Prague (Parsifal, Eugene Onegin, La bohème), among others. Mr. Fiore also conducted often at the Cologne Opera, the company where he made his German debut in 1990 with Manon Lescaut. He has returned there many times for a diverse repertoire of Strauss, Wagner, Verdi, Puccini and Janáček, and in addition conducted the city’s historic and renowned Gürzenich Orchester in many symphonic programs.

In the United States, he has appeared frequently at the Metropolitan Opera, leading over one hundred performances of nearly a dozen operas, among them the Met’s premiere production of Dvorak’s Rusalka, (1993, and revival in 1997) as well as Aida, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, La Bohème, Un ballo in maschera, Carmen, and Tosca. He has long enjoyed relationships with both the Chicago Lyric, San Francisco, and Santa Fe Operas, and also has been to the Houston Grand Opera to conduct Tannhäuser.

In recent seasons Mr. Fiore has been exploring seminal twentieth century works, including a cycle of the major Janáček operas, Berg’s Lulu, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, and Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre. In the 14/15 season, he led a new Jiří Heřman production of the opera rarity Pád Arkuna (The Fall of Arkun), the final stage work of Czech composer Zdeněk Fibich, at the National Theatre in Prague. In the same season with the Norwegian Opera, he conducted the world premiere of Jüri Reinvere’s Peer Gynt based on Ibsen’s play of the same name, as well as a double-bill of Hindemith’s Sancta Susanna and Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy, staged for the first time in Norway. In summer 2003 maestro Fiore led the world premiere of Bright Sheng’s Madame Mao at Santa Fe Opera, and in January 2005 he conducted the highly successful world premiere of Christian Jost’s Vipern for the Deutsche Oper-am-Rhein.

Born in New York City to 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, a job which he continued for six summers. He later attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. 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 three of North America’s 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 following year for Parsifal and Tristan and again in 1988 for the new Harry Kupfer production of the Ring. During this period he also freelanced as an assistant to the great Leonard Bernstein. John Fiore made his conducting debut at the San Francisco Opera conducting Gounod’s Faust in 1986, thus beginning his own conducting career,

In 1990 he embarked on an international symphonic career as well, making debuts on three continents. Since then Mr. Fiore has continued to build his repertoire and orchestral relationships. 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 conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Toronto Symphony, and New York Chamber Symphony, to name but a few. In Europe, guest orchestral engagements have included the Dresden Staatskapelle, orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bamberger Sinfoniker, Munich Radio Orchestra, Gürzenich Orchester, Orchester Rheinland-Pfalz, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice, Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Firenze, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique de Montpellier, and Basel Radio Symphony Orchestra, among others.