Alexander Pereira

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Alexander Pereira (born October 11, 1947 in Vienna ) is an Austrian cultural manager . From 1991 to 2012 he was director of the Zurich Opera House , from 2012 to 2014 director of the Salzburg Festival . He has headed La Scala in Milan since October 2014 .

Live and act

Alexander Pereira was born in Vienna as the son of an Austrian diplomat; he is a descendant of Fanny von Arnstein . Its name goes back to Portuguese ancestors who settled in Vienna in 1720. Since his parents wanted him to first “learn a real profession”, he trained in marketing and sales and went to London as a tourism manager. He then worked for Olivetti for almost twelve years : in Frankfurt he sold typewriters and calculating machines, in Berlin he was branch manager.

He also completed a vocal degree. In 1979 he was commissioned by Hermann Josef Abs , the former head of Deutsche Bank , to organize the Frankfurt Bach Concerts together with Katharina von Bismarck , which had been founded by Deutsche Bank. From 1979 to 1983 he was a board member of the Frankfurt Bach Concerts.

In 1984 he was appointed General Secretary of the Konzerthausgesellschaft in Vienna. There he succeeded in modernizing the concert scene, gaining new and young audiences and engaging Christoph Lieben-Seutter as a personal assistant for this activity. Every two years he organized the international music festival of the Wiener Festwochen .

Director of the Zurich Opera House

In 1989 he was discussed as artistic director of the Salzburg Festival , but instead he came to the Zurich Opera House, where he became artistic director on July 1, 1991. In a short time he succeeded in staging numerous internationally acclaimed productions, reducing debts in the millions through successful marketing and acquiring sponsors , and making a profit.

As artistic director, Pereira attached great importance to the development of an ensemble, the promotion of young performers, open forms of events and the involvement of the audience as well as working with well-known artists. Maintaining the opera repertoire from Mozart to Verdi was at the center of Pereira's repertoire . He also supported world premieres of contemporary works.

In 1996 Pereira became managing director of the artistic commission of the Zurich Festival , which he had largely initiated and which took place for the first time in the summer of 1997. His contract at the Opera House ran until summer 2012, and he ended his Zurich era on July 8, 2012 with Verdi's Falstaff . His successor as director of the Zurich Opera House is Andreas Homoki , who was director of the Komische Oper Berlin at the time of his appointment .

Artistic director of the Salzburg Festival

On July 20, 2012, Alexander Pereira took over the management of the Salzburg Festival and thus the responsibility for the opera cast at the Salzburg Festival 2012 to 2014 . He added a spiritual overture to the festival , allowed all opera productions to play for only one summer and was able to achieve a record attendance in the first year of his directorship. Together with the singer Cecilia Bartoli , he developed a new concept for the Salzburg Whitsun Festival , which was very well received by the audience and critics. In 2012 Nikolaus Harnoncourt returned to the Festival and, with Zimmermann's bulky opera The Soldiers , an exemplary production was achieved, the musical component of which was highly praised. In 2013, Pereira brought around a thousand Venezuelan young people who play and sing in the orchestras and choirs of El Sistema to Salzburg. The concert series was cheered by critics and the audience, and there were standing ovations . The tradition of the Salzburg Festival Ball and the award of commissioned works were also revived . Every summer Pereira presented an opera by a contemporary, in 2014 this was - successfully - the world premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie's Charlotte Salomon . In 2013, together with Drama Director Sven-Eric Bechtolf , he presented a successful, fundamental revision of Jedermann s, developed by the British-American directing duo Julian Crouch and Brian Mertes . The years 2013 and 2014 also brought visitor records.

Pereira's expansion course was not supported by the (politically occupied) board of trustees of the festival, and only partially by the president of the festival. As a result, there were already fierce controversies in 2012 - especially with Salzburg Mayor Heinz Schaden , who decidedly ruled out an extension of the contract and thus motivated Pereira to negotiate with La Scala in Milan . On June 11, 2013, Pereira and the Board of Trustees agreed on an early termination of the contract after the end of the Salzburg Festival in 2014, Bechtolf took over on an interim basis for two seasons.

Director of La Scala in Milan

In April 2005, Pereira turned down an offer from La Scala in Milan . This decision was based on the one hand on his close ties to Zurich and on the other hand on the decision of the government council of the canton of Zurich to refrain from the announced reduction of the subsidy contribution by two million francs. After lengthy negotiations, however, he was appointed artistic director in Milan at the beginning of June 2013. He took up his post at the beginning of the 2014/15 season . Even before he took office, there was a heated controversy over the takeover of successful productions at the Salzburg Festival and his contract was voluntarily shortened to just one season. After Peter Stein's successful Aida production in February 2015, however, the Board of Trustees unanimously appointed him for the original term of the contract until 2019. Pereira received criticism in March 2019 when he wanted to include the Saudi Minister of Culture on the opera house's supervisory board.

In June 2019 it was announced that Dominique Meyer would succeed him as director of La Scala in Milan in July 2021 . Pereira's contract, which expires in February 2020, has been extended to June 2021. At the end of August 2019, Pereira accepted the offer to succeed Cristiano Chiarot as director of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence .

Others

Alexander Pereira is internationally recognized as a top cultural director. Current projects are the promotion of young artists and the training of future directors. To this end, Pereira initiated a master's program for cultural managers , which is offered by the University of Zurich as a postgraduate course (Executive Master of Arts Administration). The three-year master’s program provides the necessary knowledge for the overall management of cultural businesses.

Alexander Pereira is a successful owner and breeder of racehorses and a hobby cook. He is on the advisory board of the Ars Rhenia Foundation in Liechtenstein, which promotes culture and art. In India he runs the Saint Francis Home Foundation for girls with a disability.

In 2015, Pereira was awarded the Pro Arte European Prize from the Herbert Batliner European Institute .

Private

Pereira is in a relationship with the 39 years younger Daniela Weisser de Sousa, who was previously married to the photographer Otto R. Weisser . Pereira is still married to Estelle, whom he married at the age of 23. With her he has a son and a daughter.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger Zurich: Alexander Pereira will be Scala Intendant in October 2014 , accessed on July 28, 2013
  2. ↑ Annual Report Zurich Opera House 2012/13 ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Zurich Opera House: Andreas Homoki ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ Susanne Kübler: Alexander Pereira. In: Tages-Anzeiger from May 19, 2012
  5. ↑ Alexander Pereira becomes the new director of La Scala in Milan. ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Tiroler Tageszeitung , June 4, 2013.
  6. ↑ The Scala and the Saudis: Pereira under attack. March 4, 2019, accessed March 7, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Dominique Meyer becomes the new head of La Scala in Milan. Retrieved June 28, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Pereira accepted offer from the Opera House in Florence. In: ORF.at . August 28, 2019. Retrieved August 28, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Saint Francis Home
  10. ^ DerStandard.at: Pro-Arte-Europapreis to Franz Welser-Möst . Article dated July 12, 2017, accessed July 13, 2017.
  11. ↑ World Week
personal data
SURNAME Pereira, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian cultural manager
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna