Richard Farnes
©Jack Liebeck
Nuance, dramatic heft and sheer thrill
‘I cannot recall any recent performance of Traviata conducted with such nuance, dramatic heft and sheer thrill than that undertaken here by Richard Farnes’
Bachtrack
English conductor Richard Farnes is as persuasive in his interpretations of the operas of Britten, Mozart, Verdi and Janáček, as he is when he takes Wagner’s Ring Cycle on the road around the UK.
Farnes was Music Director of Opera North in Leeds from 2004 to 2016, embarking with them on an ambitious project to perform Wagner’s Ring semi-staged, which culminated in 2016 with six highly acclaimed complete Ring Cycles across the UK and streamed online. In 2022 he returned to Opera North to conduct semi-staged performances of Parsifal in various UK cities. He has worked with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Garsington Opera, English National Opera, The Grange Festival, Metropolitan Opera New York, and Royal Danish Opera.
He has conducted orchestras across the globe and in the UK, including all the BBC orchestras, working with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms in London and at the Dubai Proms, where he conducted the first-ever performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in 2019. Recent engagements have taken him twice to the Symphony Orchestra of India in Mumbai.
