Ruben Gazarian

With the premiere of the new production of Eugen d’Albert’s “The Dead Eyes”, conducted by GMD Ruben Gazarian, the Theater Altenburg Gera was the focus of attention among opera experts at the end of March 2025. The enthusiastic premiere audience celebrated all those involved with long ovations.

PRESS QUOTES:

• Die Deutsche Bühne (Joachim Lange), March 2025
• A magical moment in musical theatre
• “Ruben Gazarian and the Philharmonic Orchestra Altenburg Gera paint a fascinating soundscape, rich colors of which are just as captivating as its lyrical and soft tones.”
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• Concerti & Neue Musikzeitung (Roland H. Dippel), March 2025
• Hypnotically overwhelming music
• “It was yet another evening where the Altenburg Gera Theater left us amazed and in awe. A phenomenal rediscovery or redemption from the threshold of modernity, a brilliant ensemble in top form, a luminous philharmonic orchestra, a passionate and intelligent conductor, and a general director who staged the ambiguous and astonishingly well-constructed plot about the fatal and comforting consequences of a miracle performed by Jesus with suggestive honesty. The premiere of Eugen d’Albert’s musical drama “The Dead Eyes” was a resounding success, with almost a quarter of an hour of final applause. […]
• The explosive events never descend into exalted bombast. This is a real art in d’Albert’s high-gloss score, precisely because Kuntze and GMD Ruben Gazarian, conducting with considered enthusiasm, unanimously love this opera. Gazarian articulates this love with a singer-friendly coordination and telepathic trust in the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra, which played at a high level not only on this premiere evening. Symbolic-decadent shivers of delight were intended and achieved.”
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• Operalounge (Rolf Fath), April 2025
• The special opera
• “The musical material is exhilarating, which the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra, under its eminent principal conductor Ruben Gazarian, relished with a pleasant sound and fine lines in the artful instrumentation. […] Long and heartfelt applause for the formidable performance of this rediscovery.”
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• Deutschlandfunk Kultur (Uwe Friedrich), March 2025
• Finally performed again
• “The orchestra, conducted with wonderful confidence by GMD Ruben Gazarian, shows great courage in the piani, but is also able to beautifully render the big sound in this lush, harmonically sophisticated music.”
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• Opernfreund (Jochen Rüth), March 2025
• The Dead Eyes
• “This musical kaleidoscope was brilliantly unveiled yesterday evening by the GMD of the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra, Armenian Ruben Gazarian, with the utmost precision, painting d’Albert’s intoxicating music – entirely in keeping with the subject matter – in the most colorful hues.”
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• Der neue Merker (Christoph Suhre), April 2025
• Gera: “The Dead Eyes”
• “The Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Ruben Gazarian, gave a magnificent performance. The diverse timbres of the score were brought to life in an excellent manner. The
• music is characterized by great contrasts and thus harmonizes wonderfully with the action on stage. Although there were a few moments of dense sound, I never felt that this was at the expense of the singers.”
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• Orpheus (Roberto Becker), May-June 2025
• When appearances deceive
• “Ruben Gazarian, the general music director of the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra, and his musicians transform it into a magnificent soundscape with a fabulous ensemble of protagonists.”
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• Art5drei (Martin Köhl), March 2025
• The Altenburg Gera Theater pulls off a major feat
• “Musically, this production is carried by Ruben Gazarian’s clever conducting. The variety of colors and the rich sound coming from the orchestra pit are simply impressive.”
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• MDR Klassik (Werner Kopfmüller), March 2025
• The Dead Eyes
• “Under the baton of Ruben Gazarian, the Philharmonic Orchestra offers all the beauty of late Romantic orchestral sound: luminous, colorful, smooth, even impressionistically dazzling soundscapes. My conclusion: definitely go and see it. It’s worth it!”
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• Opera Journal.CZ (Václav Bečvář), April 2025
• A mystery called “The Dead Eyes” in Gera, Germany
• “The musical adaptation of “The Dead Eyes” at the Theater Gera was entrusted to GMD Ruben Gazarian, who brought d’Albert’s legacy to life in a captivating way. In his interpretation, performed by the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra, the score took on a captivating magic full of mysterious moods, contrasts, striking dramatic gestures, and intense emotional outbursts.”
  
• Photos: Ronny Ristok

On October 25, 2024, Gera Theatre was the venue for the premiere of Richard Wagner’s masterpiece “The Flying Dutchman”, in the highly anticipated production by director, set designer and painter Achim Freyer. The production, under the musical direction of GMD Ruben Gazarian, was acclaimed by the audience and press alike.

PRESS QUOTES:

• Opernwelt (Clemens Haustein), December 2024
• “Freyer’s artful stage black breathes enigmatic beauty, joined by a beauty from the orchestra pit that remains without mystery: The work here was simply excellent. General Music Director Ruben Gazarian shapes the sharp contrasts of the “Dutchman” music without violating the basic aesthetic of suppleness.
• The Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra plays with a warm tone and alert precision – a remarkable level. The exemplary balance between stage and orchestra pit is also astonishing: None of the singers in the ensemble, which is strong across the board, are put under pressure by the orchestra. You never get the feeling that Gazarian is urging his musicians to play in an inhibited manner. The applause for everyone involved is enthusiastic. What the German municipal theaters away from the metropolises are capable of: It is impressively demonstrated in Gera on this evening.”
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• Die deutsche Bühne; Orpheus (Joachim Lange), October 2024 + January 2025
• „Last but not least, GMD Ruben Gazarian and the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra are fully committed to combining Richard Wagner’s tone painting with Achim Freyer’s scenic painting to create a powerful pull. On stage, he drags the Dutchman’s ship into the abyss. In the theater, he captivates the audience.”
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• Der neue Merker (Christoph Suhre), November 2024
• “GMD Ruben Gazarian and his musicians understand Wagner’s score as tone painting. The events on stage are accompanied in a multifaceted and extremely lively manner, regardless of whether they involve forces of nature or emotional moments. There is no standstill. The music is exciting and concentrated from start to finish. Unreservedly worth listening to.”
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• Ostthüringer Zeitung (Volker Müller), November 2024
•  “Musically, the evening is of a high, indeed often exemplary standard. GMD Ruben Gazarian embodies pure passion at the podium, but also knows how to savor the moments of calm and the subtleties of the score. The orchestra plays with passion, creating a rousing dynamic and mastering virtuoso passages with confidence.”
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• Online Musik Magazin (Stefan Schmöe), December 2024
• “An opera such as The flying Dutchman requires the audience to watch the work of art for a full two and a half hours. This can only be successful if the music is able to build the necessary tension – which is achieved excellently in Gera. Ruben Gazarian conducts a highly dramatic, breathless Dutchman, and the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra, together with the theater’s choir, which has been expanded to include guest singers, master this thrilling tour de force through the score with excellence. In the dark and largely monochrome aesthetic, only occasionally brightened by colorful accents from the lighting, the music can unfold its effect to full impact.”
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• Kultura-Extra – Das Online Magazin (Andre Sokolowski), October 2024
• Ruben Gazarian conducted the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra, and his approach was delightfully lively and brisk, while he also knew how to pay careful attention to the more comfortable, quieter, and more sensitive passages.
• […] All in all: highly recommended!

• Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky were not only friends – they were also both asked by Sergei Diaghilev, the legendary founder and director of the Ballets Russes, to write ballet music for his company. In a double bill, both works are now being brought to the stage by two different choreographers.

  Maurice Ravel’s symphonic poem La Valse is one of his greatest masterpieces. However, choreographer Stephan Thoss hears much more than just a waltz in it. A kind of melancholy, accompanied by muffled heartbeats and many melodic fragments, a fascinating but also dark atmosphere that repeatedly swings into exuberance. In combination with Ravel’s earlier short composition Pavane pour une infante défunte and Jean Sibelius’ Valse Triste, Thoss develops a choreography that tells the story of remembering and forgetting and – in keeping with the spirit of the waltz – the incessant turning of time, set in a snowy landscape around a couple on different time levels.

• Igor Stravinsky’s ballet music Le Sacre de Printemps from 1913 is one of the key works of 20th-century music. It marks a turning point in the history of modern dance. While Thoss focuses on the icy snow, choreographer Edward Clug turns to water as the central element of his choreography, which, like a surprising spring rain, washes away the winter and allows new life to sprout from the earth. On stage, water presents a great challenge for the dancers, but at the same time opens up a new dimension of the famous Rite of Spring.

  The musical direction of this extraordinary double ballet evening is in the hands of GMD Ruben Gazarian.

• Thüringische Landeszeitung; Ostthüringer Zeitung (Sabine Wagner), May 2024
•  “A ballet evening with music from the orchestra pit can sometimes be an amazing concert experience. The Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by General Music Director Ruben Gazarian, masterfully achieves this delicate balance between stage and pit, especially when performing Ravel and Stravinsky.”
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• Kunst und Technik (Moritz Jähnig), May 2024
• „Igor Stravinsky’s music, created especially for this purpose, is unique, demanding, pulsating, and physically palpable down to the groin.
• When GMD Ruben Gazarian performs it with the Philharmonic Orchestra, he captivates his audience from the very first note. “The Worship of the Earth” is not an innocent, folksy melody. You can hear that something is wrong with this cheerfulness. Even in the seemingly harmless first part, Gazarian points to the abyss in this composition. Tempo and pressure signal the deadly events that will inexorably unfold in the spring-like, innocent atmosphere.“
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Ruben Gazarian has been chosen as the new Principal Chief Conductor and Musical Director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra this week. He will assume this position with beginning of the 2024-2025 concert season. The orchestra’s board chairman, Moshe Ne’eman, stated that Gazarian is well-known today as a musical intellectual force, innovative and influential figure in the world of music. “We are proud and happy that Gazarian, who was among the winners of the Georg Solti conducting competition and serves as General Music Director of the Altenburg-Gera Theatre in Germany; who successfully led the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn in Germany for 16 years, before that was Principal Conductor of the West Saxon Symphony Orchestra (now: Leipzig Symphony Orchestra), will come to conduct our chamber orchestra.“

It was further stated that Gazarian was selected for his role here by the board after receiving overwhelming endorsement from the orchestra’s musicians, who had a fruitful collaboration with him in concerts performed under his direction in March of this year. “Gazarian, who lives and breathes music in every fiber of his being, will bring authentic performance and true interpretation with insight, great courage, and inner strength to music from all periods and genres and will serve as inspiration for the orchestra and the audience,” Ne’eman added.

Ruben Gazarian, born in Armenia and residing in Germany, has numerous impressive achievements to his name: behind him are already almost two thousand concerts and dozens of recordings covering a wide range of styles and expressive forms that have captivated large audiences and earned him the “Golden Coin” award from the city of Heilbronn.

Artists, who work with him, praise his broad musical education, his meticulous rehearsal work layer upon layer, his deep emotional understanding of color, sound, and aesthetics, his connection to the Western musical heritage but also to the spirit of the times and the human experience. According to their testimony, not only is it fascinating and captivating to work with him, but they also receive from him an attitude of respect, caring and warmth.

In response to the news, Ruben Gazarian said, „Israel is a country where I have enjoyed a wonderful musical collaboration with several orchestras for years already, with numerous heart-warming concert memories and human encounters.

Thus, I am all the more delighted to have been appointed Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra. We only just got to know each other a few weeks ago and already during the first day of rehearsals you could feel, how much the chemistry plus the musical and human communication between us was immediately perfect. The intensive rehearsals, the two concert evenings in Tel Aviv, the amazing overall unity and the mutual harmony that has developed in such a short period of time, give me every reason to look forward to a promising collaboration and many musical highlights in the future!“

Ruben Gazarian will remain General Music Director at the Theater Altenburg Gera until summer 2027. As the five-divisions theater has now announced, a contract extension was recently signed.

“Ruben Gazarian is doing outstanding work with our orchestra. The musicians’ joy and the enthusiastic audience clearly show that we are fortunate to have Ruben Gazarian as General Music Director in East Thuringia,” said General Manager Kay Kuntze.

The Armenian-born conductor has been General Music Director at the Theater Altenburg Gera since 2020. In an initial reaction, he said: “It is a great honor and pleasure for me to be able to continue as General Music Director at this theater for another three years. I feel very much at home here and appreciate the wonderful audience and the people here at the theater.”

The new production of the opera of all operas – “Don Giovanni” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – is the first major musical theater production by the Altenburg Gera Theater at the beginning of the 2023-2024 season. The premiere in Altenburg took place in September 2023, while the Gera audience will not be able to experience this new production until January 2024.

PRESS QUOTES:

• Thüringische Landeszeitung; Ostthüringer Zeitung (Wolfgang Hirsch), January 2024
• “[…] Let’s get started and enjoy ourselves! GMD Ruben Gazarian and the orchestra, who are in good spirits, ensure this at the premiere. In the D minor overture, the conductor reduces all tragic force to the bare essentials, unfolding a cleverly accentuated web of melody with transparent delicacy and, in contrast to the dimly lit showroom, soon allowing a brilliant storm of timbres to light up the orchestra pit with increasing clarity, brightness, and breathtaking intensity. Gazarian knows what he is doing; he is at home with Mozart. The ensemble of singers is also perfectly rehearsed.”
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• opern.news (Ute Grundmann), January 2024
• “With the occasionally vivid opening notes, the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra under GMD Ruben Gazarian immediately makes it clear how much verve, clarity, and beautiful sound are to dominate the evening. […]
• Alongside the magnificent singers, the orchestra becomes the trump card of this Mozart opera. The bright strings repeatedly catch the ear, and under Gazarian’s baton, the musicians bring a fire and drama that is sometimes lacking on stage.”
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• Osterländer Volkszeitung (Felix Friedrich), September 2023
• “High praise for the other musical performers at the premiere, above all GMD Ruben Gazarian, the Philharmonic Orchestra, and the opera choir. As usual, Ruben Gazarian conducted Mozart’s score with absolutely concise conducting movements and great passion, its often virtuoso and not easily summarized vocal flourishes, leaving hardly any room to breathe during the dramatic Last Supper scene and Don Giovanni’s descent into hell. The orchestra followed his intuitions perfectly.”
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• Kunst und Technik (Moritz Jähnig), September 2023
• “The best comes last: the Philharmonic Orchestra, seated next to the stage, performs Mozart with theatrical verve and powerful rhythmic emphasis in the Altenburg theater tent under the baton of GMD Ruben Gazarian. It is also a pleasure because you can really hear the individual voices very well, which otherwise—pardon me—sometimes remain in the pit. […]
• An entertaining evening, bravo. Go see it.”

Following the extremely successful series of performances in 2019 and the production’s nomination for the German Theater Prize, “The Passenger” by Mieczysław Weinberg – in a production by General Director Kay Kuntze – was revived for three performances in April 2023, under the musical direction of GMD Ruben Gazarian.

Weinberg’s mentor Dmitri Shostakovich called this opera a “hymn to humanity”.

About the opera: In 1960, the German diplomat Walter Kretschmar and his wife Lisa board an ocean liner that is to take them to South America. During a walk on deck, Lisa is suddenly overcome with terror as she thinks she recognizes Martha, a former Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp, in another passenger. Lisa had once worked there as a guard. She is seized by bad memories, while Walter knows nothing of his wife’s dark past. The opera is about guilt and the impossibility of suppressing it, but also about the responsibility of subsequent generations to keep the memory of the darkest chapter in German history alive. At the same time, it is about the timeless power of love, humanity and music.

• The collection of Grimm’s Children’s and Household Tales, first published in 1812, was also read by the German composer Engelbert Humperdinck (1854–1921) before going to sleep. His sister Adelheid Wette (1858–1915) used it to create the libretto for Humperdinck’s full-length children’s opera, which uses many folk songs and clearly follows in the tradition of Wagner. Since its premiere under the baton of Richard Strauss on December 23, 1893, in Weimar, the fairy tale opera has been particularly popular during the Christmas season. The fairy tale serves as a gateway for many children to enter the world of opera for the first time with Hänsel and Gretel.
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• The premiere of this absolute classic took place at the end of November in Gera – in an opulent and technically elaborate production by General Director Kay Kuntze and under the baton of GMD Ruben Gazarian. The evening enchanted the entire audience, young and old alike. This new production is now a permanent fixture in the pre-Christmas program of the Altenburg Gera Theater and will continue to delight thousands of children and adults in the coming seasons.
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• (Photos: Ronny Ristok)
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  Thüringische Landeszeitung; Ostthüringer Zeitung (Wolfgang Hirsch), November 2022
•  “From the pit, “General” Ruben Gazarian conducts the “Kinderstubenweihfestspiel” in a manner that is as audible, powerful, and stirring as a Wagnerian world drama—which is essentially what it is! […]
• What a blessing: this blissful, inspiring evening in Gera’s dream factory, simply called Theater.”

In 1939, 21-year-old Gottfried von Einem encountered the first play by 22-year-old Georg Büchner – and was overwhelmed. The result of this encounter, Danton’s Death, is the first opera by a living composer to be premiered at the Salzburg Festival in 1947. The significance of the work was immediately recognized, and productions soon followed in Vienna, Hamburg, Berlin, Hanover, Stuttgart, Paris, Brussels, and New York. Translated into six languages, Gottfried von Einem’s opera conquered the stages of the world. Unlike in Büchner’s play, the people – the revolution – play one of the leading roles, and the choral scenes are among the most effective that von Einem composed in his essentially tonal score. The mass scenes, but also Danton’s justification before the revolutionary tribunal, lend the opera a melodramatic pathos that is foreign to Büchner and which von Einem further fuels with his striking musical language.

The new production of “Danton’s Death” – directed by General Director Kay Kuntze and conducted by GMD Ruben Gazarian – enjoyed an acclaimed premiere in Gera on September 16, 2022.

• Thüringische Landeszeitung; Ostthüringer Zeitung (Wolfgang Hirsch), September 2022
• “In the pit, the excellent orchestra under GMD Ruben Gazarian creates a clearly contoured tumult in tonal soundscapes, which is splendid, but anything but culinary. Well-measured tempos and motor skills unfold a hallucinogenic pull.”
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• Der neue Merker (Christoph Suhre), November 2024
• “Under the baton of GMD Ruben Gazarian, the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra played with dedication. The electrifying sharpness of the music is simply part of the piece—as are Lucile’s cantilena-like songs.
• When the curtain fell, there was silence at first. Then the applause broke out, long, enthusiastic, and loud.
• The effort put into this work was well worth it!”
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• Das Orchester (Roland Dippel), December 2022
• “A premiere that had been on hold for a long time due to lockdown turned into a powerful evening of opera. […] In Gera’s Art Nouveau Theater, the orchestra pit curves far into the horseshoe-shaped oval. The open acoustics enhance the striking effect. […]
• The masses’ anticipation of the slaughter becomes clearer than their fear, even though GMD Ruben Gazarian and the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra model not only the violence but also the splendor and curves of Einem’s musical language; grand opera in just 90 minutes, denouncing the essentials with the courage to leave gaps and with grand gestures in a short period of time.”
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In the first days of March 2021 saw the light of day a recording with the program composition, which has undoubtedly earned the predicate “Extraordinary”: The soloists Reinhold Friedrich (trumpet), Dorothee Mields (soprano), Eriko Takezawa (piano), together with the GCO Ingolstadt under the baton of its chief conductor and artistic director Ruben Gazarian, interpret music by Benjamin Yusupov, Ivan Fischer, Giya Kancheli, Alan Hovhannes and Luca Lombardi. Four premiere recordings are on this disc, which – like all other productions of the label “Ars-Produktion” – offers not only the normal CD version, but also the especially high-quality SACD version including the multi-channel mix.

The recordings for this CD were made in November 2020, in the middle of the worldwide Covid 19 pandemic and under difficult conditions. Ever-changing sanitary regulations pose major obstacles to the art and culture industry worldwide. The hope of all artists involved in this CD is hereby to make their contribution so that art and culture will emerge from this crisis not weakened, but strengthened.

“For art is a daughter of freedom, and from the necessity of spirits, not from the necessity of matter, it wants to receive its prescription.” Friedrich Schiller

Ruben Gazarian, GMD in front of the Theater Altenburg Gera (Photo: Ronny Ristok / Theater Altenburg Gera)

On August 26, 2020, during a press conference in the Theater Gera, the signing of the contract took place, making Ruben Gazarian the new General Music Director at the Theater Altenburg Gera for at least four years, starting on September 1, 2020.
   
Here is the official press release of the theater:

“Despite corona-related restrictions, the year-and-a-half-long search for a successor to Laurent Wagner in the position of General Music Director at Theater Altenburg Gera was successfully concluded. 109 candidates had applied, 24 of them were invited, presented themselves on site and worked with the ensembles.
Ruben Gazarian was able to convince the Philharmonic Orchestra, the music theater ensemble and the theater management the most with his fresh musicality, his expertise and his differentiated sound ideas. During the press conference on August 26th 2020, he signed a contract as the new General Music Director at Theater Altenburg Gera, starting this season, for at least four years.
Ruben Gazarian is no stranger to the East Thuringian audience. He has already appeared as a violin virtuoso and also as a guest conductor with the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchestra; in December 2010 he conducted a Philharmonic Concert with works by Alexander Borodin, Aram Khachaturian and Dmitri Shostakovich.
His inaugural concert in the new position will be the 2nd Philharmonic Concert on Tuesday, October 20, 2020, 7:30 p.m. in the Gera Concert Hall. This concert will take place again on Wednesday, October 21 at 7:30 pm and on Thursday, October 22 at 2:30 pm and 7:30 pm in the Gera Concert Hall. It will be performed in the Theater Tent Altenburg on Friday, October 23 at 7:30 pm. Furthermore, he will conduct the 3rd Philharmonic Concert in November and is responsible for the musical direction of the production “Das Lied von der Erde” by Gustav Mahler in the chamber music version by Arnold Schönberg (premiere: November 27, 2020).”

www.theater-altenburg-gera.de