The Wiener Festspiele / Vienna Festival was founded in Vienna in the summer of 2019. The Wiener Festspiele is an opera festival with a focus on classical and romantic operas. The season runs from mid-July to the end of August every year. Venues are the Mozarthaus Vienna, Palais Eschenbach, House of Engineers, Palais Pálffy, MuTh (concert hall of the Vienna Boys’ Choir) and Musikverein Vienna. The director of the festival is Jesús León and the music director is Toby Purser. The festival has its own orchestra, the Vienna Festival Orchestra.
Our founder and artistic director of the Vienna Festival comes from Hermosillo, Mexico. He studied in the USA at the UCLA Opera Studio, the Boston Opera Institute and was a member of the Domingo-Thornton Young Artist Program at the Los Angeles Opera. In Italy he studied at the Solti Accademia di bel Canto and for two years on a Nicolai Ghiaurov scholarship under the direction of the soprano Mirella Freni at her academy in Modena. Specializing in bel canto roles, he has had the leading tenor roles at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Opéra de Nice, the Opera de Toulon, the Opera Comique, the Maggio Musicale Florentine in Florence, the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, the Opera di Firenze and the Teatro Regio in Parma, Teatro Luciano Pavarotti in Modena, Korea National Opera Seoul, Daegu Opera House, Theater du Châtelet, Scottish Opera, Garsington Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Atlanta Opera and is currently from Alfredo at the Minnesota Opera returned. He currently lives in Vienna.
Winning universal critical praise, Toby Purser’s work this season was nominated for an Olivier Award and an International Opera Award. Appointed Music Director of New Sussex Opera last year, he has recently worked with companies including English National Opera (also as holder of an ENO Mackerras Conducting Fellowship), Lyric Opera Ireland, Grange Park Opera, Opéra National de Paris, and Opera della Luna. For ENO he conducted Turn of the Screw, The Marriage of Figaro and La Traviata, and was Assistant Conductor on Lulu, the world premiere of Ryan Wigglesworth’s Winter’s Tale, and Julian Anderson’s Thebans. He was Assistant Conductor at the Opèra National de Paris on Eugene Onegin, and on Tristan und Isolde at Longborough Festival. He is conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on Jesús León’s CD Bel Canto.
Karin Hofer is a classical Italian pianist and an opera choir singer with German as a mother language and Italian as a second language. In addition to her artistic studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, she obtained her third MA in Performing Arts Management at the Accademia Teatro alla Scala di Milano in June 2020.
Her interests now include enriching her experience and expertise in a challenging engagement as a Head of Operations and Performing Arts Management for the Vienna Opera Festival.
