Eytan Pessen

Interested in the artistic benefits of a stable ensemble working together over a long period, he chose to extend the Ensemble and the young ensemble (the Dresden opera’s studio programme) rather than invest in established guests. Among the artists he brought to Dresden as permanent members of the ensemble are Giorgio Beruggi, Scott Connor, Emily Dorn, Vanessa Goikoexea, Evan Hughes, Pavol Kuban, Christopher Magiera, Amanda Majeski, Marjorie Owens, Barbara Senator, Tichina Vaughn, Rachel Willis-Sørensen, Sebastian Wartig and Elizabeth Zharoff. Conductors that made their debut in Dresden include Josep Caballé Domenech, Julia Jones (conductor), Nicola Luisotti, Michele Mariotti, Carlo Montanaro, Pier Giorgio Morandi, Henrik Nánási, Daniel Oren and Omer Meir Wellber. Pessen widened the repertory span to include commissions from de:Miroslav Srnka and Lucia Ronchetti, as well as Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus, Jaromir Weinberger’s Svanda Dudák, (Schwanda the Bagpiper), Kurt Weill’s Street Scene (opera), Hans Werner Henze’s Gisela! and We Come to the River. For this performance the famous theatre interior (by the architect Gottfried Semper) was completely rebuilt with three vast set parts (designed by Rebecca Ringst and Anette Hunger) jutting into the audience space and reaching up toward the balcony.

He often gives masterclasses for singers, pianists and accompanists at the Les Azuriales festival, Meistersinger Akademie in Neumarkt, the Scuola d’Opera in Bologna Duszniki Zdroj, Oberlin in Italy, San Francisco Opera, North Carolina School of Arts, Kyoto University of the Arts, Kaunas Music Academy , New Israeli Opera, Vinterakademi Voksenåsen (Oslo), the Mikhailovsky theatre in Saint Petersburg Festival FAOT in Sonora, Mexico, the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá, The Turku festival in Finland, and the theatres of Stuttgart, Graz and Dresden.

For the Wagner year 2013 he conceived a mini-festival that explored Richard Wagner’s development years in Dresden, combining Wagner's The Flying Dutchman with Gaspare Spontini's La Vestale and Halevy’s La Juive.

He was jury member of the Stanislav Moniuszko competition in Warschau, Antonina Campi International Voice competition in Lublin, Concorso Voci Verdiane Busseto, the Belvedere competition in Vienna, as well as the Marcello Giordani competition in Catania, the Aviv competition in Tel Aviv, El Premio de Canto Ciudad de Bogotá, The 5th International Solomiya Krushelnytska Opera Singers Competition, Concorso Internationale di Assisi and Concorso Aslico in Como, The year 2011 he was artistic advisor for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples and from December 2012 to 2014, was advisor to Teatro Massimo in Palermo, where he programmed Richard Strauss’ Feuersnot, Jaromír Weinberger's Schwanda the Bagpiper and Hans Werner Henze's Gisela!.

Eytan Pessen was artistic advisor to the RUHR.2010 cultural festival under music director Steven Sloane. An intense collaboration ensued with the composer Hans Werner Henze, 2010 became a year-long Hans Werner Henze project, which spanned many cities, opera and ballet companies as well as symphony orchestras and chamber music groups. Henze wrote his last opera, Gisela! For the RUHR.2010 (an opera for and about youth, premiered at the RuhrTriennale).

Since 2007 he has been teaching at the Theaterakademie in Munich, since 2008 at the Frankfurt Opera, since 2014 at the IOS in Zürich. since 2016 at the Académie of the Paris national opera, and since 2018 at the Dutch national opera.

As head of music staff and the casting director at the Stuttgart Opera in Germany, he worked under the German Dramaturge-Intendant Klaus Zehelein and Co-Intendant Pamela Rosenberg. When she left for San Francisco in 2001, he became casting director. In Stuttgart, Pessen launched the international carriers of conductors Constantinos Carydis, Nicola Luisotti, Carlo Montanaro and Robin Ticciati. Singers Lucas Meachem and Eva-Maria Westbroek began their international careers during his Stuttgart tenure as well. Other guest artists were Brandon Jovanovich, Catherine Naglestad and Jonas Kaufmann, who explored Italian repertoire as Barbiere-Almaviva, Rodolfo and Alfredo. In Stuttgart Pessen promoted a series of unknown baroque and classic works, and conceived the chamber music series for the orchestra at the Mozart-Saal, which is still running today. Under Zehelein’s leadership the Stuttgart Opera won the Opera house of the year award of European critics six times during the fifteen years.

Born in Haifa, Israel, to parents of German heritage, he studied Piano (with Dr. Nilly Shilo, Walter Aufhauser, Irina Zaritskaya and Dina Turgeman), composition (with Andre Hajdu and Daniel V. Oppenheim), and musicology at the Tel-Aviv University Rubin Academy, with a Bachelor of Music, summa cum Laude, in 1983, and a Masters of Music, magna cum laude, in 1984. Further Piano studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia with Vladimir Sokoloff, (voice studies at Curtis with Robert Grooters), and at the Juilliard School in New York with Marshal Williamson, Margo Garrett and Alberta Masiello. In New York he worked as pianist and coach for the Metropolitan Opera young artist's programme.

Eytan Pessen (born 30 August 1961 in Haifa, Israel) is a pianist and voice teacher, currently at the Opera houses of Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Warsaw, Zürich and international festivals. He was former opera director of the Semperoper in Dresden, artistic advisor to Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and former casting director of the Staatstheater Stuttgart.