EVE QUELER – conductor
The American conductor Eve Queler is the Music Director of the Opera Orchestra of New York who performs mainly rare operas in concert version in Carnegie Hall. In the 2000-01 season, the renowned institution celebrated its 30th anniversary and Mo. Queler has conducted more than 70 operas with the organization. The four to five performances each season are broadcast on National Public Radio throughout the USA; some of them were live-recorded like Massenet’s Le Cid with Placido Domingo, Donizetti’s Gemma di Vergy, Verdi’s Aroldo with Monserrat Caballe, and Puccini’s Edgar with Renata Scotto and Carlo Bergonzi. All of them are the only existing commercial recordings of these works. Queler’s recording of Janacek’s Jenufa with Gabriela Benackova and Leonie Rysanek belong to the historically important releases. She has also made studio recordings of the opera rarities: Guntram by Richard Strauss and Nerone by Arrigo Boito.
Eve Queler has guest conducted at the Opera de Nice, Teatro Liceu in Barcelona (I Vespri Siciliani with Caballe and Domingo), Australian National Opera in Sydney (Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail), New York City Opera (Le Nozze di Figaro with Samuel Ramey), in Las Palmas (Elisir d’Amore with Leo Nucci), at the Mariinski Theater/Kirov Opera in St. Petersburg (Mazeppa), at the National Theater Brno (Jenufa), the Hamburg Staatsoper (Don Pasquale), Der Fliegende Hollander at the Kassel Opera, the Smetana Divadlo in Prague (Carmen and Rigoletto) and at the Bonn opera (Jenufa and La Traviata and Fidelio). She also conducted concert version performances at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, a gala performance of Bellini’s I Puritani with Alfredo Kraus with the Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall in London and Giordano’s Fedora for the French Radio ORTF in Paris.
Mo. Eve Queler has conducted at the Pretoria Arts Center for a production of Les Contes d’Hoffman, Orff’s Carmina Burana and the Sibelius violin concerto. In Canada she led Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Opera Hamilton. Gala Verdi concerts in Mannheim and Wiesbaden in January 1996 were extremely successful. In June 96, she was a guest at the “Las Palmas Opera Festival” with Fidelio with excellent public and critical success and led Puritani at the Arhus Festival in Denmark.
During the “Silver-Jubilee” 95/96 of the Opera Orchestra of New York, Eve Queler conducted Bellini’s Norma (with Jane Eaglen), Armida by Rossini (with Renee Fleming) as well as Giovanna d’Arco by Verdi (with June Anderson). In 1997 the concert opera performances at Carnegie Hall continued with La Cenerentola, featuring the debut of Vivica Genaux, Tristan und Isolde and Ernani and in 98-99 with Verdi’s I masnadieri, Halevy’s La juive and Bellini’s La sonnambula.
After highly successful appearances with the Hong Kong Symphony, Eve Queler conducted Bellini’s I Capuleti ed I Montecchi, with Vessalina Kassarova, the United States’ premiere of Donizetti’s Adelia featuring the return to New York of Italy’s Mariella Devia and the same composer’s Lucrezia Borgia with Renee Fleming and Marcello Giordani. In May 1997, Mo Queler made her debut at the Frankfurt Opera conducting performances of Rossini’s Tancredi and in 1999 she led Mozart’s Zauberflote in specially staged performances at the Temple of Dender at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2005, at Opera de Quebec she led Les Contes’dHoffmann and debuted at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires with Rossini Elisabetta Regina with Jennifer Larmour, and in 2006 conducted Mozart’s Nozze di Fiagro at Oberlin and opened the Carnegie Hall OONY season with Donizetti’s Dom Sebastian.
Eve Queler and the Opera Orchestra of New York recently completed its 2001, 2002 and 2003 subscriptions which brought to the New York public the first performance in the US of the original Italian version of Donizetti’s La favorita, the first hearing outside of Italy of the original version of the same composer’s Maria Stuarda and a first New York hearing in more than 35 years of Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots. Mo Queler led performances of Verdi’s La battaglia di Legnano, a sensational reading of Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur and the first US hearing of Donizetti’s Marin Falliero. The most recent Carnegie Hall season included Bizet’s Les Pecheurs de Perles, Verdi’s Attila and Rossini’s La donna del lago. Opera Orchestra’s seasons have been cited by both The New York Times and ‘New York’ Magazine as ‘triumphant’…. And Mo. Queler’s conducting as ‘exciting’ and ‘authoritative.’ Recent Opera Orchestra seasons included critically successful revivals of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena featuring Krassimira Stoyanova and Jennifer Larmour, Ponchielli’s La gioconda with Aprile Millo and Marcello Giordaniand Puccini’s Fanciulla del West, another triumph with Millo. Recent Carnegie Hall performances include Rossini’s William Tell, Delibes Lakme and Montemezzi’s L’amore dei tre re.
Mo. Eve Queler also conducts the symphonic repertory and has worked with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Orchestra of the Rome Opera, the Edmonton Orchestra and many other American orchestras.
Eve Queler has many distinctions including two honorary doctorates. In March 1995 she was honored by New York University for a Leading Woman in the Arts, while in September of that year, the “ Butterfly Award” of the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation was presented to her for her outstanding work with performances of Puccini’s lesser known works. In June 2003, the French government honored her for her contribution to the revival of many works of the French operatic repertory. A native of New York City, Ms. Queler made her conducting debut at Stamford, Connecitcut with Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana. She studied at the Mannes College in New York and studied with famous conductors like Igor Markevich and Walter Suskind. For five seasons she was assistant conductor to Julius Rudel at the New York City Opera. She has made a name for herself also with various publications on rare operas and made critical editions of three Donizetti operas.