In Spring 2008 Niksa Bareza will be conducting the Bohème Production at Teatro Munipal de Santiago de Chile. In 2007, he is conducting numerous Puccini operas, Madama Butterfly at the Milan Scala, where he recently directed productions of Tosca and La Bohème; a Trittico revival at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Tosca at the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich. In June 2006 he conducted a gala concert at the Festival Puccini Torre del Lago.

2001-07 Niksa Bareza was music director of the Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie-Chemnitz as well as the Oper Chemnitz; his last season there included productions of Carmen and Mascagni’s Iris, following new productions of Ariadne auf Naxos, Idomeneo and Lohengrin. Niksa Bareza will continue as guest conductor there.

On the occasion of the Schumann-Year 2006 Niksa Bareza toured through Austria and Slovenia with his Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie Chemnitz and appeared at Grosses Festspielhaus Salzburg and Wiener Konzerthaus among many others. During the previous seasons he also led his Orchestra to Munich, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Dresden, Berlin and Cologne.

In further concert-engagements Niksa Bareza worked at the conductor’s desks of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, of Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Orchestra Sinfonica Arturo Toscanini and Croatian Radio Symphony Orchestra Zagreb. He presides over the latter as chief-conductor.

Besides the highly acclaimed performances of Richard Wagner’s and Richard Strauss’ works in Chemnitz, a sensational Salome-series with Inga Nielsen and Anja Silja and a celebrated performance series of Verdi’s Ballo in Maschera with Michele Crider, both at the Staatsoper Hamburg rank among to the outstanding successes of the previous seasons. Niksa Bareza was guest at many important opera houses such as the Norske Opera Oslo, the Teatro Comunale Firenze, the Teatro Regio Parma, the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin and the Teatro alla Scala Milano, where he conducted Götterdämmerung, Fidelio, Tosca, Manon Lescaut, Trovatore and a new production of Andrea Chenier.

Niksa Bareza was born in Split in 1936. Bareza studied composition and conducting at the Zagreb Music Academy with Milan Sachs and Lovro von Matacic. For several years, he stayed in Salzburg for the summer months and attended the classes of Hermann Scherchen and Herbert von Karajan. He was introduced to the Viennese conducting style and to the symphonic opus of Anton Bruckner by Lovro von Matacic. Conducting a lot of contemporary music, Niksa Bareza was in touch with many composers such as Orff, Messiaen, Dallapiccola, Malipiero, Petrassi, Shostakovich, Nono and Britten and conducted their works. From 1972 until 1975, Bareza conducted many opera productions at the Leningrad Kirov-Theatre, from 1978 until 1981 at the Zürich Opera House and from 1981 until 1990 as chief conductor of the Grazer Philharmonic Orchestra.


2007/08