Eric Weimer, Piano

Biography

In the course of the past twenty-five years, Eric Weimer has established himself as one of the pre-eminent coach/Assistant Conductors in the international opera world. Through his work at some of the world’s leading companies—in particular, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Bayreuth Festival, but also the San Francisco Opera, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Cleveland Orchestra—he has prepared some 150 productions, collaborating with most of the world’s greatest opera maestri: James Levine, Sir Andrew Davis, Bruno Bartoletti, Donald Runnicles, Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Franz Welser-Moest, Antonio Pappano, James Conlon, Christoph Eschenbach, Christian Thielemann, and Georg Solti.  In this work, he has coached and worked closely with virtually all the major singers active on the international opera stage.

While famous as a German specialist—he has prepared no less than twelve complete cycles of Wagners’s Der Ring des Nibelungen—he is known also for the breadth of his experience with other repertoires, particularly the Baroque and the Italian. A fluent speaker of German and Italian, he has prepared most of the German and Italian repertoire that Lyric Opera of Chicago has presented in the past 24 years. Highlights of his work at Chicago Lyric have included the numerous productions of the Puccini masterpieces conducted by Bruno Bartoletti as well as the productions of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni, in which Mo. Weimer has played harpsichord continuo for most performances of the past 15 seasons.

A former musicologist—Dr. Weimer holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and is the author of Opera seria and the Evolution of Classical Style—he is also in great demand as a coach of young singers. He joined the music staff of the Ryan Opera Center (training wing of Lyric Opera of Chicago) in 1992 and teaches there every summer. He has also had numerous residencies with the other principal opera training programs in this country and Canada: the MET’s Lindemann Young Artists Development Program, the Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists Program, the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, and the Canadian Opera Company’s ensemble. In all such work, he endeavors to provide a link between young singers and the numerous distinguished Italian and German singers with whom he has worked for so many years.

Mo. Weimer most recent activities have included conducting opera in his own right. He has led productions by the DePaul School of Music of The Marriage of Figaro and Hansel and Gretel, and in 2008 he conducted two acclaimed performances of Il barbiere di Siviglia at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Recent activities as recitalist include concerts with Danielle De Niese, Andrea Silvestrelli, and Salvatore Licitra.