SPOTTI APPOINTED PRINCIPAL GUEST CONDUCTOR

Together with Maxime Pascal, he will take up the position starting from the 2026/27 season

“Berlin, a place of artistic exploration and musical dialogue” for the 32-year-old Italian conductor

Michele Spotti was appointed today Principal Guest Conductor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, a position he will assume from the 2026/27 season. At just 32 years old, the current Music Director of the Opéra and Philharmonic Orchestra of Marseille will share the role with Maxime Pascal, becoming one of the cornerstones of the new musical structure envisioned by designated General director Aviel Cahn. At their side, Titus Engel will serve as Conductor in Residence.

“I am very pleased that we could attract Maxime Pascal and Michele Spotti, two enormously renowned and vastly different conductors, to commit to our theatre,” says Aviel Cahn. “Pascal has deep roots in the 20th century repertoire, while Spotti is a younger representative of great Italian Romantic tradition. I have been working with Titus Engel for many years. Few conductors in the German-speaking opera world are as open and as innovative as he is.”

Spotti’s collaboration with the Deutsche Oper will include at least two productions and a symphonic concert each season, as part of a project aimed at broadening the orchestra’s interpretative perspectives. For the Italian conductor, this marks a return to the Berlin stage, where he already established a significant connection in 2023 with Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims and, more recently, in January 2025 with Verdi’s Rigoletto.

“Berlin has always been for me a place of artistic exploration and musical dialogue,” says Michele Spotti. “I hope to contribute to honoring the long-standing tradition of Italian conductors in this city, bringing the richness of our repertoire, but not only, to the vibrant stage of the Deutsche Oper.”

The new appointment comes at a particularly significant moment in Spotti’s international career. Recently, the French Ministry of Culture awarded him the title of “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres,” one of the highest honors bestowed upon individuals who have distinguished themselves in artistic creation and cultural dissemination. The 2025/26 season will also see him engaged in two major milestones: in October he will conduct Falstaff for the first time at the Verdi Festival in Parma, and in May he will make his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with La traviata.

With his appointment as Principal Guest Conductor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Spotti joins a team that embodies the choice of a collegial and international model for the future of the theatre, based on complementary skills and a shared vision of artistic openness.

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