On January 13, the Hvorostovsky Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theatre will present Giacomo Puccini’s opera Tosca. Chinese conductor Li Haoran will take the conductor’s stand at one of the most popular works of the world opera art. The maestro, winner of many prestigious international competitions, will perform for the first time in our city: this is a major event for all music fans. 

Li Haoran was born  into a family of musicians in China in 1986. At the age of six, he started to study piano; at the age of 10, he performed in public for the first time. 

He graduated from the Central Conservatory in Beijing and the Hans Eisler School of Music in Berlin. He gained a scholarship of the Aspen Music Festival (the USA), and participated in master classes of Daniel Barenboim, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Neeme Järvi, Tugan Sokhiev, Peter Eötvös, Seiji Ozawa, and Jorma Panula. 

During the still short period of his career, he managed to win many competitions. He is the winner of the 5th International Conducting Competition Jeunesses Musicales (2014, Bucharest), laureate of the special prize of the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra and the Audience Award of the 4th Evgeniy Svetlanov International Conducting Competition (2018, Paris), finalist of the International Competition for Young Conductors (2019, Besançon). In 2022, the young Chinese conductor became a laureate of the Rachmaninov International Competition of Pianists, Composers, and Conductors in Moscow (III prize and bronze medal). 

The maestro collaborates with the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, where he participated in the production of Die Meistersinger of Nuremberg by Wagner as assistant conductor in 2018 (co-production with the Covent Garden Theatre and Sydney Opera House). During the 2019/20 season, he was an assistant to Long Yu, the Chief Conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra. He was also an assistant to Christophe Eschenbach and Charles Dutoit. 

In 2023, he made his debut at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. He’s a guest conductor of the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini (Parma), National Radio Orchestra of Romania (Bucharest), and a number of orchestras in China. 

Li Haoran is today a much-in-demand conductor in many countries around the world. He has performed with the German Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra, Saarbrücken Radio and TV Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the German Central Radio (MDR, Leipzig), George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra (Bucharest), National Romanian Radio Orchestra, Philharmonic Orchestras of Sibiu, Timisoara, Hangzhou, symphony orchestras of Guangzhou, Vancouver, Hangzhou Philharmonic Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra of the State Academic Chapel of St. Petersburg, Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic Society. 

In 2022, Li Haoran made his debut on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. For the first time, he took the conductor’s stand of the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra performing excerpts from Rachmaninoff’s works; in September 2023, he conducted La Traviata and a concert version of Ariadne auf Naxos there. Maestro Valery Gergiev highly appreciated the talent of his young colleague. Now, a performance of the conductor from the Middle Kingdom has become possible in Krasnoyarsk. 

It’s worth mentioning that the title role of Tosca in the January performance will be sung by the soloist of the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Music Theatre Irina Vashchenko who has already performed in Krasnoyarsk: the part of Lisa in The Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky. And her partner in the role of Cavaradossi will be Mergen Sandanov who has brilliantly performed Radames in Aida by Giuseppe Verdi last December. Our new soloist will appear in the opera Tosca on the Krasnoyarsk stage for the first time. No doubt that the performance of such wonderful artists will be stamped in all true music fans’ memory - this event can’t be missed!