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Valéry Ryvkin is the Artistic Director of the Santa Barbara Opera and the Greensboro Opera Company. He made his professional conducting debut in 1992 with Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci in Tel Aviv for the Israel Vocal Arts Academy, after which he was invited to conduct Werther at the Pittsburgh Opera Center, where he returned in 1995 for L'Elisir d'Amore. In recent seasons, Maestro Ryvkin received outstanding notices leading productions of La Traviata, with the Santa Barbara Grand Opera and the Greensboro Opera Company. He was re-engaged by both companies for La Bohéme, Carmen, Don Giovanni, and Falstaff prior to undertaking his permanent associations with the companies. Recent engagements include appearances with Portland Opera conducting La Traviata and Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Austin Lyric Opera conducting Cosi fan tutte, Mississippi Opera conducting Falstaff, and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City conducting Don Pasquale in addition to his duties in Santa Barbara and Greensboro. Notable future guest conducting engagements include productions of Die Fledermaus and Boris Godunov for the San Diego Opera and the "Night of Rising Stars" concert for the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Mr. Ryvkin has also conducted Carmen, Madama Butterfly in Greensboro, Cavalleria Rusticana, I Pagliacci, Le Nozze di Figaro, Tosca, Così fan tutte, Don Pasquale, and Madama Butterfly in Santa Barbara, and returned to the Metropolitan as Assistant Conductor to Valéry Gergiev for Boris Godunov and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk., Sarasota Opera to lead a new production of Rimsky-Korsakov's May Night and Hansel und Gretel. As a member of the conducting staff of the Metropolitan and San Francisco Operas, Mr. Ryvkin has collaborated with conductors such as Valéry Gergiev, James Levine, Antonio Pappano, and Donald Runnicles. He has also served on the music staff of L'Opera de Montreal, Florentine Opera Company (Milwaukee), Opera Columbus, Orlando Opera and the Sarasota Opera. Mr. Ryvkin made his conducting debut at the Westside Opera in New York, conducting productions of Così Fan Tutte and Don Pasquale. He served as Music Director of the Opera Department at the Mannes College of Music in New York City in 1987, where he conducted operas of Rossini, Haydn, Donizetti and Vaughan Williams and as a guest of the Music Academy of the West, where he conducted productions of Verdi's Falstaff and The Impresario. Born in St. Petersburg (Leningrad), he studied piano, theory and composition at the Leningrad Conservatory. His early interest in conducting led him to attend the classes of the noted professor of conducting, Ilya Musin. Since 1979, Maestro Ryvkin has been living in New York City, where he completed his musical studies at the Julliard School. In 1987 he was awarded a scholarship to study conducting with Walter Taussig of the Metropolitan Opera, and spent that summer at the Salzburg Music Festival studying under Herbert von Karajan. 1 |