Claire Gibault - conductor
Claire Gibault was born in Le Mans and studied at the conservatory there and in Paris. She was Director of the Orchestre de Chambéry from 1976 to 1983, and staff conductor and assistant to John Eliot Gardiner when he was Music Director of the Opéra National de Lyon from 1983 to 1989. She was later appointed Director of the Atelier Lyrique et Maîtrise at the Opéra de Lyon a post which she held until July 1998. She has conducted many productions in Lyon including Pelléas et Mélisande, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La Cenerentola, Die Entfürung auf dem Serail, La Finta Giardiniera, Gounod’s Roméo et Juliet, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Offenbach’s Les Brigands, L’Heure Espangnole, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, Haydn’s Il mondo della luna, Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, and Nino Rota’s Le Chapeau de paille d’Italie. Premieres include La station thermale by Fabio Vacchi, which she has recorded for Ricordi, Dédale by Hugues Dufourt which has also been released on CD by MFA/Radio France, and Fabio Vacchi’s Les Oiseaux de Passage.
She was Music Director of Musica per Roma 2000-2, where she established Il Laboratorio Voci in Musica, and for which she has conducted productions of Così fan tutte, Die Entfürung auf dem Serail, Henze’s Pollicino, Hansel and Gretel and West Side Story.
Elsewhere she has conducted Pelléas et Mélisande (Royal Opera, Covent Garden), Le Comte Ory (Glyndebourne Festival Opera), Così fan tutte (Opera North), Chabrier’s L’Etoile (Edinburgh Festival), Zaïde and Der Schauspieldirektor (Bastille), L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and Cats (Châtelet), Boieldieu’s La Dame Blanche (Opéra Comique) Mitridate, La Donna del lago, Die Zauberflöte, Le Nozze di Figaro and Bastien et Bastienne (Nice), La Clemenza di Tito (Orléans), La Traviata (Nancy), Idomeneo and Così fan tutte (Liège) Maria Stuarda (Torino) La Cenerentola (Rome) and Les Oiseaux de passage (Bologna). She has assisted Claudio Abbado at the Royal Opera House, La Scala and at the Vienna State Opera on Pelléas et Mélisande.
In 1995 she became the first woman to conduct the La Scala Orchestra for performances of La station thermale at Piccolo Teatro Scala, and in 1997 she conducted Wolfgang Rihm’s Jacob Lenz at the Hebbel Theater in Berlin with members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In November 2002 she made her debut with The Washington Opera conducting Idomeneo, and in February 2003 she conducted the world premiere of Fabio Vacchi’s Il letto della storia at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence.
Claire Gibault has conducted in concert throughout France, and in Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada and the USA. Engagements include concerts with the Hallé Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, the Orchestre National de Belgique, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, Copenhagen Philharmonic and the Våsterås Sinfonietta. She regularly conducts the Orchestra Mozart di Bologna which she co-founded with Claudio Abbado. She has recorded works by Beethoven and Schubert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Engagements in 2005 included Henze’s Pollicino at the Théâtre du Chatelet, and concerts with the Orchestre Mozart de Bologne, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Sofia. She also conducted music by Fabio Vacchi for the film Gabrielle directed by Patrice Chéreau. 2006 includes concerts with the Orchestre de l’Opéra d’Anvers, the Orchestre Philarmonique de Luxembourg, the Orchestre Mozart de Bologne, the Orchestre de Savoie, and the premiere of the opera Peter Pan by Patrick Burgan at the Théâtre du Chatelet.
Claire Gibault was awarded the insignia of the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur in 2002, and in February 2005 she received an honorary doctorate from the Université catholique de Louvain.