Born in Paris in 1962, conductor Marc Piollet studied at the Hochschule
der Künste in Berlin and attended masterclasses with John Eliot Gardiner,
Michael Gielen, and Kurt Masur. In 1995, he was a prizewinner at the
Dirigentenforum of the Deutscher Musikrat.
After serving as First Kapellmeister at the Philharmonisches
Staatsorchester Halle and at the Staatstheater Kassel, he was Music
Director of the Volksoper Vienna from 2003 to 2005. From 2004 to 2012, he
held the position of Generalmusikdirektor at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden,
where he enjoyed great success with the complete Wagnerian cycle Der
Ring des Nibelungen and numerous new productions.
In the 2024-2025 season, Marc Piollet returned as guest conductor to the
Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt/Oder and conducted three
concerts with the orchestra in Neubrandenburg.
Among the engagements for the 2025-26 season is a return to the
Staatsoper Stuttgart for a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto.
In recent years, Marc Piollet has conducted at major international opera
houses, including the Royal Theatre of Copenhagen (La Bohème with
Anna Netrebko as Mimì), the Bayerische Staatsoper as part of the Munich
Opera Festival (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), the Opéra National de Paris
(Il barbiere di Siviglia, Les Contes d’Hoffmann with
Rolando Villazón in the title role), the Staatstheater Stuttgart (Jenůfa,
Bluebeard’s Castle/Erwartung), the Teatro Colón in Buenos
Aires (Carmen and Don Giovanni), the Vienna State Opera (Il
barbiere di Siviglia), and the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona (La
Bohème and Carmen in the renowned production by Calixto
Bieito).
He made his US debut with Carmen at the Cincinnati Opera in 2014
and returned there in 2019 to conduct Le nozze di Figaro.
For many years, he has maintained a close collaboration with the Deutsche
Oper am Rhein (several new productions, including recently Petruschka/L’enfant
et les sortilèges) and with the Teatro Real in Madrid. There, he was
a guest in 2012 with C(h)oeurs, a dance theatre production by
Belgian choreographer Alain Platel featuring music by Giuseppe Verdi and
Richard Wagner, which was enthusiastically received by audiences and
critics alike.
Among subsequent productions, it is worth noting that during rehearsals
for L’elisir d’amore (2013/14), Gérard Mortier invited him to
conduct Tristan und Isolde in the spectacular staging by Peter
Sellars.
Marc Piollet has performed worldwide with prestigious orchestras such as
the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Münchner Philharmoniker, the
Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, the Sinfonieorchester Basel, the Berner
Symphonieorchester, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre
Symphonique de Montréal, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the China
Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.
At the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, he conducted a Beethoven programme with
Lang Lang and the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg. He regularly collaborates
with Piotr Beczala for opera galas, including one held in Moscow in April
2021.
Marc Piollet has also developed a close artistic partnership with Annette
Dasch: for Sony, a recording of Mozart arias with the Akademie für Alte
Musik Berlin was released, and he has also toured with her and the
Münchner Rundfunkorchester, as well as collaborated on the DVD production
Die Gretchenfrage (EuroArts).
For many years, he has been committed to the orchestral training of young
musicians: he regularly leads sessions of the Junge Sinfonie Berlin, an
orchestra he founded during his student years. During his tenure in
Wiesbaden, he actively contributed to the establishment of the
Orchesterakademie of the Hessisches Staatsorchester Wiesbaden.
Since 2016, he has been a professor of conducting at the Kunstuniversität
Graz.
September 2025