MARCUS
MERKEL

Conductor, Composer, Pianist

„... one of the most interesting young German conductors of the present day ...“

— MDR Klassik

Marcus Merkel was born in Berlin and has been the Chief Conductor at Theater Koblenz since the 2022/23 season. He also performs as a pianist and composer. Besides guest conducting in Antwerp, Dresden, Madrid, Munich, Kyoto (Japan), Berlin, and Amsterdam, he has worked with soloists such as Jonas Kaufmann, Elina Garanča, Erwin Schrott, and Kristine Opolais. Sir Bryn Terfel & Ludovic Tézier rely on him as a conductor for their concert evenings.

Since youth work and supporting young musicians are highly important to him, he founded the "Junge Philharmonie Berlin" and the "Junge Konzerte Graz" and works with Jeunesse Austria.

In the 2025/26 season, he will make his debut at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, with the Jenaer Philharmonie and the Brucknerorchester Linz with symphony concerts, returns to the Dresden Semperoper with a series of performances of Die Fledermaus, and makes his debut with the RSO Wien with a CD production featuring the Austrian star baritone Rafael Fingerlos.

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Schedule

Marcus Merkel at Antwerp Symphony (c) Antwerp Symphony & Bjorn Comhaire
Sat
31
Jan
Massenet

Werther | Theater Koblenz

Opera
Premiere
19:00 – 21:30
Production: Massenet: Werther
Drame lyrique by Jules Massenet - Poetry by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - In French with German surtitles

The young Werther falls in love with Charlotte, who promised her mother on her deathbed that she would marry Albert. Now Charlotte is torn between this promise and the feelings she develops for Werther. When Charlotte finally rejects him again after a moment of closeness, Werther sees no way out of his emotional distress: in a letter, he asks Albert for a pistol. When Charlotte learns of this, she rushes to Werther's flat in horror and finds him badly injured. Werther dies in her arms.

"These stirring scenes, these captivating images", Jules Massenet is said to have exclaimed when he came across "The Sorrows of Young Werther" in 1885. In Massenet's opera, Goethe's epistolary novel from 1774 is a "drama of pure humanity", as librettist Paul Milliet put it, in which Werther ends up desperately reciting Ossian's lyrics in Charlotte's arms, while she also confesses her love for him in the face of death and children sing Christmas carols in the distance. Through subtle orchestration on the one hand and far-reaching dramatic gestures on the other, Massenet manages to realise the basic idea of unanswered passionate love on the operatic stage.

The management team of the Koblenz production has already impressed several times in recent seasons in opera and drama productions with the sophisticated interweaving of the aesthetic levels of acting performance, elements of puppet theatre and the mirroring or magnification of the action by means of the live camera. The meticulous work at the interfaces of the various art forms is tailor-made for Jules Massenet's "Werther" and becomes an intense experience of sound, space and images for the audience.
Mon
02
Feb
Massenet

Werther | Theater Koblenz

Opera
2nd performance
19:00 – 21:30
Production: Massenet: Werther
Drame lyrique by Jules Massenet - Poetry by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - In French with German surtitles

The young Werther falls in love with Charlotte, who promised her mother on her deathbed that she would marry Albert. Now Charlotte is torn between this promise and the feelings she develops for Werther. When Charlotte finally rejects him again after a moment of closeness, Werther sees no way out of his emotional distress: in a letter, he asks Albert for a pistol. When Charlotte learns of this, she rushes to Werther's flat in horror and finds him badly injured. Werther dies in her arms.

"These stirring scenes, these captivating images", Jules Massenet is said to have exclaimed when he came across "The Sorrows of Young Werther" in 1885. In Massenet's opera, Goethe's epistolary novel from 1774 is a "drama of pure humanity", as librettist Paul Milliet put it, in which Werther ends up desperately reciting Ossian's lyrics in Charlotte's arms, while she also confesses her love for him in the face of death and children sing Christmas carols in the distance. Through subtle orchestration on the one hand and far-reaching dramatic gestures on the other, Massenet manages to realise the basic idea of unanswered passionate love on the operatic stage.

The management team of the Koblenz production has already impressed several times in recent seasons in opera and drama productions with the sophisticated interweaving of the aesthetic levels of acting performance, elements of puppet theatre and the mirroring or magnification of the action by means of the live camera. The meticulous work at the interfaces of the various art forms is tailor-made for Jules Massenet's "Werther" and becomes an intense experience of sound, space and images for the audience.
Thu
12
Feb
Massenet

Werther | Theater Koblenz

Opera
4th performance
19:00 – 21:30
Production: Massenet: Werther
Drame lyrique by Jules Massenet - Poetry by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - In French with German surtitles

The young Werther falls in love with Charlotte, who promised her mother on her deathbed that she would marry Albert. Now Charlotte is torn between this promise and the feelings she develops for Werther. When Charlotte finally rejects him again after a moment of closeness, Werther sees no way out of his emotional distress: in a letter, he asks Albert for a pistol. When Charlotte learns of this, she rushes to Werther's flat in horror and finds him badly injured. Werther dies in her arms.

"These stirring scenes, these captivating images", Jules Massenet is said to have exclaimed when he came across "The Sorrows of Young Werther" in 1885. In Massenet's opera, Goethe's epistolary novel from 1774 is a "drama of pure humanity", as librettist Paul Milliet put it, in which Werther ends up desperately reciting Ossian's lyrics in Charlotte's arms, while she also confesses her love for him in the face of death and children sing Christmas carols in the distance. Through subtle orchestration on the one hand and far-reaching dramatic gestures on the other, Massenet manages to realise the basic idea of unanswered passionate love on the operatic stage.

The management team of the Koblenz production has already impressed several times in recent seasons in opera and drama productions with the sophisticated interweaving of the aesthetic levels of acting performance, elements of puppet theatre and the mirroring or magnification of the action by means of the live camera. The meticulous work at the interfaces of the various art forms is tailor-made for Jules Massenet's "Werther" and becomes an intense experience of sound, space and images for the audience.
Sat
14
Feb
Massenet

Werther | Theater Koblenz

Opera
5th performance
19:00 – 21:30
Production: Massenet: Werther
Drame lyrique by Jules Massenet - Poetry by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - In French with German surtitles

The young Werther falls in love with Charlotte, who promised her mother on her deathbed that she would marry Albert. Now Charlotte is torn between this promise and the feelings she develops for Werther. When Charlotte finally rejects him again after a moment of closeness, Werther sees no way out of his emotional distress: in a letter, he asks Albert for a pistol. When Charlotte learns of this, she rushes to Werther's flat in horror and finds him badly injured. Werther dies in her arms.

"These stirring scenes, these captivating images", Jules Massenet is said to have exclaimed when he came across "The Sorrows of Young Werther" in 1885. In Massenet's opera, Goethe's epistolary novel from 1774 is a "drama of pure humanity", as librettist Paul Milliet put it, in which Werther ends up desperately reciting Ossian's lyrics in Charlotte's arms, while she also confesses her love for him in the face of death and children sing Christmas carols in the distance. Through subtle orchestration on the one hand and far-reaching dramatic gestures on the other, Massenet manages to realise the basic idea of unanswered passionate love on the operatic stage.

The management team of the Koblenz production has already impressed several times in recent seasons in opera and drama productions with the sophisticated interweaving of the aesthetic levels of acting performance, elements of puppet theatre and the mirroring or magnification of the action by means of the live camera. The meticulous work at the interfaces of the various art forms is tailor-made for Jules Massenet's "Werther" and becomes an intense experience of sound, space and images for the audience.
Sun
01
Mar
Massenet

Werther | Theater Koblenz

Opera
7th performance
19:00 – 21:30
Production: Massenet: Werther
Drame lyrique by Jules Massenet - Poetry by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - In French with German surtitles

The young Werther falls in love with Charlotte, who promised her mother on her deathbed that she would marry Albert. Now Charlotte is torn between this promise and the feelings she develops for Werther. When Charlotte finally rejects him again after a moment of closeness, Werther sees no way out of his emotional distress: in a letter, he asks Albert for a pistol. When Charlotte learns of this, she rushes to Werther's flat in horror and finds him badly injured. Werther dies in her arms.

"These stirring scenes, these captivating images", Jules Massenet is said to have exclaimed when he came across "The Sorrows of Young Werther" in 1885. In Massenet's opera, Goethe's epistolary novel from 1774 is a "drama of pure humanity", as librettist Paul Milliet put it, in which Werther ends up desperately reciting Ossian's lyrics in Charlotte's arms, while she also confesses her love for him in the face of death and children sing Christmas carols in the distance. Through subtle orchestration on the one hand and far-reaching dramatic gestures on the other, Massenet manages to realise the basic idea of unanswered passionate love on the operatic stage.

The management team of the Koblenz production has already impressed several times in recent seasons in opera and drama productions with the sophisticated interweaving of the aesthetic levels of acting performance, elements of puppet theatre and the mirroring or magnification of the action by means of the live camera. The meticulous work at the interfaces of the various art forms is tailor-made for Jules Massenet's "Werther" and becomes an intense experience of sound, space and images for the audience.
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Reviews

„Von Chemnitz in die Welt“

„... What he does with his hands is all the more precise, with a focus on marvellous details, when he makes the brass sparkle and the woodwinds glitter lasciviously. But also capable of controlled ecstasy ...“ — Werner Kopfmüller, Leipziger Volkszeitung

„Voces del Real: Ludovic Tézier“

„... The discovery of the evening, however, was the conductor, a young artist who is able to switch between the academicism of a David, the Offenbachian splendour, the biblical and oriental cancan of a Don Camille, the decadent exaltation of a Massenet and the monumentality of a Wagner.“ — Blas Matamoro, scherzo

„La clemenza di Tito“

„... The Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie, under the direction of Marcus Merkel, performs in the orchestra pit of the Rokokotheater with a wide-awake presence and delivers a lively and crisp sound that does Mozart credit. ...“ — Uwe Rauschelbach, Schwetzinger Zeitung

„Carmen“

„...Conductor Marcus Merkel challenges the orchestra made up of members of the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra to brilliant performances, builds up a broad dynamic spectrum and awakens the Andalusian flair in the audience's imagination with Bizet's sparkling rhythms....“ — Paul Stepanek, Oberösterreichische Nachrichten

„Così fan tutte“

„...The sparks also fly in the orchestra pit, Marcus Merkel draws a lively Mozart sound from the Rheinische Philharmonie....“ — Florian Oberhummer, Salzburger Nachrichten

Tosca Preview - Jonas Kaufmann & Marcus Merkel

Repertoire

Marcus Merkel's repertoire includes 55 works of stage literature - in 75 productions to date.

View entire repertoire
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