Aviel Cahn

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Aviel Cahn (born June 14, 1974 in Zurich ) is a Swiss doctor of law and trained singer .

Life

Cahn studied piano , singing and law at the University of Zurich . His dissertation is entitled The Theater Director - His Legal Status in Theory and Practice . While still a student, he ran his own artist agency , ran the artistic office of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under Howard Griffiths and worked in administration for the Nureyev Foundation.

In 2000/01 he set up the first regular concert season based on the western model for the China National Symphony Orchestra with the conductor Tang Muhai in Beijing .

At the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki , Cahn was director of artistic planning from 2001 to 2004. Several new operas by Finnish composers are premiered there every year. During his tenure, z. E.g. the opera Rasputin by Einojuhani Rautavaara with Matti Salminen in the title role premiered. In addition, Aviel Cahn caused a stir across Europe with the Helsinki Opera with the large-scale production of the Rossini opera Il viaggio a Reims , for which he was able to win the Nobel Prize for Literature Dario Fo as director and set designer. Dario Fo has also rewritten an important part of the libretto, adapted to the music by Rossini researcher Philip Gossett . The performance was broadcast live on TV by Arte in 2003 throughout Europe.

Then Cahn directed the opera at the Stadttheater Bern . When he took office in Bern in 2004, he was the youngest opera director at the age of 30. He has performed new works as well as young and current reading styles of the great classics with directors such as Tatjana Gürbaca or Mariame Clément, some of whom are also specially young . To this end, he presented new productions to important directors and singers in German-speaking Switzerland for the first time: for example Guy Joosten , Harry Kupfer , Renata Scotto , Lorenzo Mariani. Many of the world's leading singers have performed with him in Bern. He cultivated contemporary opera with first performances by Aulis Sallinen, Peter Eötvös and Christian Jost.

In 2006 Aviel Cahn initiated the Concours Ernst Haefliger , the first international singing competition for young opera singers in Switzerland. The competition is dedicated to the Swiss tenor Ernst Haefliger, who died in 2007 but was still personally and actively involved in the first edition of the competition. Aviel Cahn remained artistic director of the competition until 2009, when Dominique Mentha succeeded him.

For the 2007/08 season he was also director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra together with chief conductor Tang Muhai.

Since January 2009 he has been artistic director of the Flemish Opera ( De Vlaamse Opera ) in Antwerp / Ghent. He brought directors such as Michael Thalheimer, Peter Konwitschny and Calixto Bieito to Belgium for the first time. Projects with Terry Gilliam, Jan Fabre or the Flemish theater group Abattoir Fermé are just as much part of the program as world premieres (by Elena Katz-Chernin, Dirk D´Ase, Christian Jost, Giorgio Battistelli) and the rediscovery of rarities. Dmitri Jurowski has been chief conductor since 2011. In 2013 he was able to win Oscar winner Christoph Waltz to tackle his first opera production in Antwerp with Der Rosenkavalier .

With the production Parsifal by director Tatjana Gürbaca and under the musical direction of Eliahu Inbal, Aviel Cahn was able to win important prizes with the Vlaamse Opera: such as the production of the year 2013 in the critics' survey of the specialist magazine Opernwelt and the International Opera Award 2014 in London for the best Wagner Aniversary production of the Wagner anniversary year 2013. In 2014 and 2015 the Vlaamse Opera was nominated for “Best Opera Company” (with 5 other opera houses worldwide) at the International Opera Awards . The Antwerp production La Juive by Peter Konwitschny won the German Faust Theater Prize for Music Theater 2016 for its revival in Mannheim.

In October 2013 Aviel Cahn was elected to the board of the European Music Theater Academy . From June 2016 he is Member of the Board of Opera Europa.

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personal data
SURNAME Cahn, Aviel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss singer and opera director
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich