Corinna Niemeyer

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  • Conductor

About Corinna

Recent and future orchestral highlights include the Orchestre de Paris, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Hallé, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Kammerakademie Potsdam and Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León. Corinna has also had regular projects with Les Siècles and Ensemble Modern.

Corinna Niemeyer was appointed Music Director of the Orchestre de Chambre du Luxembourg in September 2020, a position she held for four seasons. During her tenure the orchestra established relationships with several artists of international renowned and new audiences were attracted through her innovative programmes, encompassing works from Haydn and Mozart to Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été with Ian Bostridge and Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre.

Corinna is establishing her reputation as an opera conductor, making her debut this season with both English National Opera (Suor Angelica) and Detroit Opera (new production of Cosi fan tutte ). She will also conduct staged productions of George Benjamin’s Picture a day like this in both Luxembourg and at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl. Corinna conducted the UK premiere of this work at the Royal Opera house last season, which followed her acclaimed debut in Autumn 2022 with a new production of Rape of Lucretia, co-produced with Britten Pears Arts.

Her enthusiasm for conveying music in innovative ways is reflected in the breadth of her activities, which include period music ensembles, contemporary premieres, cross-disciplinary projects, opera, as well as mainstream symphonic projects. She has established a reputation for her ability to connect with audiences and for her creative approach to presenting concerts.

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Contact

For availability and general enquiries:

Alison Nethsingha

Alison Nethsingha

Senior Artist Manager
Jo Fry

Jo Fry

Associate Director

For contracts, logistics and press:

Holly Cartwright

Holly Cartwright

Assistant Artist Manager

Representation

Worldwide general management with Askonas Holt

Follow Corinna

Season Highlights

Sep 2024
Soria, Spain
Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León Emmanuel Pahud (flute) Programme including Mozart, Cécile Chaminade, Mendelssohn Symphony No 4
Sep 2024
English National Opera, London
PUCCINI: Suor Angelica English National Opera Suor Angelica: Sinead Campbell Wallace The Princess: Christine Rice The Abbess: Madeleine Shaw The Monitress: Lea Shaw The Mistress of the Novices: Gaynor Keeble Sister Genovieffa: Alexandra Oomens
Feb 2025
Grand Theatre de la Ville, Luxembourg
George Benjamin: Picture a day like this Orchestre de Chambre du Luxembourg Woman: Marianne Crebassa Zabelle: Nikola Hillebrand Lover 1/Composer: Beate Mordal Lover 2/Composer's Assistant: Cameron Shahbazi Artisan/Collector: John Brancy
Apr 2025
Detroit Opera House
Mozart: Cosi fan tutte Detroit Opera Orchestra Fiordiligi: Amina Edris Dorabella: Sun-Ly Pierce Ferrando: Joshua Blue Guglielmo: Thomas Lehman Don Alfonso: Ed Parks Despina: Ann Toomey

Video

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News

Press

  • Puccini: Suor Angelica

    English National Opera, London Coliseum
    Sep 2024

    • And in a superb house debut, it’s beautifully conducted by Corinna Niemeyer and faultlessly played. An outstanding achievement, and it should, by right, belong in ENO’s regular repertory. *****

    • The English National Opera Orchestra played Puccini’s score superbly under the eloquent baton of Corinne Niemeyer, while a selection of the ENO Chorus together with some distinguished solo singers completed an impeccable all-female company. *****

    • The conductor Corinna Niemeyer coaxed excellent playing from the ENO orchestra — often delicately misty and evocative but with a fierce tragic force unleashed at the tragic climax of one of Puccini’s most underrated scores.

    • Corinna Niemeyer, conducting without a baton, sweeps the music into a frightening mix of sentiment, religiosity, and despair.

    • …ENO’s superb orchestra… shade in the subtle colours and gentle harmonies of a score that once or twice rises to extraordinary heights of either emotional desperation or spiritual exaltation under the inspiring leadership of conductor Corinna Niemeyer.

  • Benjamin: Picture a day like this

    Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House, London
    Sep 2023

    • [The cast]...together with the conductor Corinna Niemeyer, bring the world that Benjamin has created movingly to life. ****

    • The 70-minute journey…is full of gentle wit and insights into human nature - and some compelling music for the singers and a chamber orchestra, virtuosically delivered under Corinna Niemeyer’s direction.

    • …conducted by Corinna Niemeyer with tenderness and care.

  • Fauré | Poulenc | Saints-Saens

    Hallé
    Apr 2023

    • There was light and airy French music to begin with from the orchestra alone, conducted by Corinna Niemeyer in her debut with the Hallé. That was auspicious: she got a gentle but precise pizzicato underlay from the start for the beautiful tune of Fauré’s Pavane, controlled the ends of its phrases delightfully, and made the violas charmingly audible in the central section.

    • ... addressing the audience, Niemeyer spoke warmly saying “French programmes are all about colour... how to colour, how to blend instruments”. Niemeyer clearly knew how to balance an orchestra with this philosophy from the opening work to the last... Fauré’s Pavane began the concert. It had a perfect momentum in Niemeyer’s hands and there was a beautiful balance between the gentle pizzicato strings and the woodwinds in the opening. The phrasing was subtle and delicate, befitting of Fauré’s gently shaped phrases. Vibrato was kept light, just sufficiently to tint the sound in what was a simple, uncomplicated and highly effectively performance… Saint-Saëns’ famous “Organ” Symphony needs no introduction. In the Adagio to Part 1, Niemeyer ensured it was solemn and stately keeping the orchestral hues dark and sinister especially in the strings and brass. Each time the music modulated from minor to major in the quicker Allegro moderato, Niemeyer ensured the tonal range changed too, bringing brighter primary colours to contrast with more intense tenebrious episodes ... The Scherzo movement was vividly bright and the repeat of the Allegro moderato was more surefooted than its initial statement. The final section was brisk, but not rushed or hurried in any way. Niemeyer proved very skilled in using rubato to aid the excitement and expression in a conclusion that was majestically glorious, peaking just at the right moment.

  • Britten: The Rape of Lucretia

    Royal Opera House, London
    Nov 2022

    • Conductor Corinna Niemeyer coaxes some beautiful playing from Aurora Orchestra, drawing out some plangent colours in Britten’s tightly wound, intensely dramatic score, particularly from the woodwind.

    • Musical standards are equally high. Corinna Niemeyer gets the pacing just right with a thrusting account of Britten’s virtuosic score that takes few prisoners.

      • Musical America
      • 17 November 2022

    • Corinna Niemeyer, meanwhile, conducts with detailed subtlety and beautifully understated intensity.

    • Corinna Niemeyer led a propulsive reading of the score from the pit that drove the music forward without rushing the more delicate passages, particularly at the start of Act 2.

    • Corinna Niemeyer conducted a tense performance with some scorching playing from the Aurora Orchestra.

    • Conductor Corinna Niemeyer galvanises Britten's score with meticulous attention. She allows the thirteen-piece Aurora Orchestra to undulate smoothly before ramping up tension in line with the each emotional beat. Her timing and precision add a confrontational immediacy to the tragic on-stage action. She charges the cast, a selection of Britten Pears Young Artists and Jette Parker Artists, like a jolt of electricity.

  • Stravinsky | Saint-Saens

    Danish National Symphony Orchestra
    May 2022

    • Niemeyer dirigerede det imposante værk med synlig fornøjelse, energi og omhu. Niemeyer conducted the imposing work with obvious pleasure, energy and care. Torsdagskoncerten var raffineret tænkt og herligt ambitiøs. Thursday's concert was refined thoughtful and wonderfully ambitious.

  • Ravel: L'Enfant et les Sortilèges

    Lille Opera
    Feb 2022

    • We must associate with this success the ensemble Les Siècles, with its period instrument – the Typical French winds, including bassoons and double basses so tasty, the hushed and quick-silver strings, the velvety horns – led with elegance refinement and dramatism by Corinna Niemeyer, undoubtedly at the dawn of a beautiful international career. With the conductor, we find here a fluidity of the contours, a natural sense of the sentence in its conduct, an evocative power, a sound poetry of all moments, so typically Ravelian. But Corinna Niemeyer does not hesitate, with good reason, to pull the score towards the pastiche (the jazzy swing of the teapot-cup duo) or the parody of fashionable contemporaries (the clock scene thus recalling the aesthetics of the ephemeral group of the Six) implied by an unpredictable Ravel pince-sans-rire and a bit mocking.

  • Rossini: Le Comte Ory

    Opéra-Théâtre de Metz
    Oct 2021

    • The Choir of the Eurometropolis of Metz, particularly at ease in this lively and playful score, contributes to the atmosphere of general jubilation. Conducted with precision and rigor by the conductor Corinna Niemeyer, the National Orchestra of Metz, divided between the pit and the first rows of the parterre, plays with its usual professionalism.

    • Corinna Niemeyer offers a reading of the work perfectly in line with the Rossinian aesthetic: light but dynamic, fun and poetic.

    • The musicians, led by the firmness and flexibility of Corinna Niemeyer, unfold the variety of this stunning score of virtuosity, finely managing the Rossinian crescendi (in tempi and dynamic).

    • Corinna Niemeyer has managed to appropriate the quintessence of the Rossinian style; she manages to whip the Orchestre national de Metz and infuse it with the part of madness that the execution of such a perilous score requires. The work pays off and this is understood: in the pit, all the desks are of a metronomic precision, starting with the brass and the winds so characteristic of Rossini's writing (the scene of the storm in Act II), and on the set the distribution is in unison with the energy that circulates between the musicians...

  • Monteverdi: L'incoronazione di Poppea

    Theater St. Gallen
    May 2019 - Jun 2019

    • Corinna Niemeyer and the St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra bring this neo-baroque music fresh and straightforward with quite late-romantic and expressionist insinuations. Close contact with the stage contributes much to the overall impression of a concentrated compactness of this operatic rarity. The good two hours of Krenek's pleasantly cut-to-the-point stuff about love and betrayal at the court of Nero are among the most entertaining and exciting things one has recently experienced in St. Gallen.

    • The St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Corinna Niemeyer transports this instrumental colour palette in the most wonderful way, showing the motivic ramifications with the required transparency. The orchestral sound is never too thick or too intrusive, even in the two preludes and the intermezzo there is a clever dynamic subtlety that directs the ear to attentive listening.

    • In the committed, sensitive interpretation of Corinna Niemeyer and the St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra, the transparent orchestral movement reveals astonishing, imaginative details of the score... Already because of the pleasing vocal and musical performance, it is worth visiting the production, which is extremely interesting as an alternative to historically informed performances... The transparent orchestral movement in the dedicated, sensitive interpretation of Corinna Niemeyer and the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen hears amazing, imaginative details of the score... For the gratifying vocal and musical performance, it is worth visiting the production as an alternative to historically informed performances extremely interesting.

Discography