Joana Mallwitz on Mozart, the Salzburg Festival, and her secret for success

It’s a highlight of her career to date – Joana Mallwitz’s debut at the Salzburg Festival. She’s conducting Mozart’s “Così fan tutte”, combining passion with precision. Joana Mallwitz figures amongst the outstanding conductors of her generation. Opernwelt magazine named her their 2019 ‘Conductor of the Year’. Since the 2018/19 season she has been the General Music Director of the Staatstheater Nürnberg.

Born 1986 in Hildesheim, Joana Mallwitz undertook tertiary musical studies at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover. There, at age 13, she was accepted into the first year by the Institute for the Early Advancement of the Musically Highly Gifted. The start of the 2014/15 season saw Joana Mallwitz take on her first executive position, as General Music Director of the Theater Erfurt – making her Europe’s youngest GMD.

In 2018 she moved on to the Staatstheater Nürnberg, where she conducted new productions of Prokofiev’s “War and Peace “ and Wagner’s “Lohengrin” – both of which were received enthusiastically by audiences and critics alike. Further engagements saw Joana Mallwitz working with the hr-Sinfonieorchester, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Dresdner Philharmonie, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Kremerata Baltica, the Royal Danish Orchestra, the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and the Oper Frankfurt.

She makes her debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2020 with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Così fan tutte“, accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic and the Salzburg Festival vocal ensemble. The staging is by Christof Loy. Joana Mallwitz will be the first woman in the history of the festival to have been granted a full production series.

We spoke to Joana Mallwitz about Mozart, the Salzburg Festival, social-distancing rules in the time of the coronavirus, and her secret to success.

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