John Helmer Fiore

Born in New York City into a musical family, John Fiore received his earliest musical training from his father, a pianist and choral director, and his mother, a singer. Mr. Fiore began his professional musical activities at age 14 as a pianist and coach for the Seattle Opera's annual production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, a job which he continued for six summers. He later attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Within a short period…

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Born in New York City into a musical family, John Fiore received his earliest musical training from his father, a pianist and choral director, and his mother, a singer. Mr. Fiore began his professional musical activities at age 14 as a pianist and coach for the Seattle Opera’s annual production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, a job which he continued for six summers. He later attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Within a short period of time, he became a prized assistant in four of North America’s most respected companies: the Santa Fe, San Francisco, Chicago Lyric and Metropolitan Operas. He also was a personal assistant to Zubin Mehta in Florence, Daniel Barenboim in Bayreuth and Leonard Bernstein in Rome. In 1986, he made his conducting debut at the San Francisco Opera conducting Gounod’s Faust. Mr. Fiore was a frequent guest of the Metropolitan Opera for more than a decade, leading over one hundred performances of nearly a dozen operas, among them the MET’s premiere production of Dvorak’s Rusalka (1993). He also conducted the first staged version of Berlioz’s Les Troyens in Sydney (1994), and the first complete cycle of Wagner’ RING in the National Theatre in Prague (2005, coproduction with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein). John has also conducted regularly in such opera houses as Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Semperoper in Dresden, and the Grand Théâtre in Geneva. John Fiore is the music director of The Norwegian Opera & Ballet (Den Norske Opera & Ballett), the first music director in over a decade of this leading Norwegian arts institution. Having started his tenure in 2009, he conducts on average over 30 performances per season of opera, ballet, and symphonic concerts, as well as taking part in chamber music performances. Highlights include Britten’s Peter Grimes, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Strauss’ Salome. From 1999 to 2009, he was the Music Director of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf/Duisburg, as well as the Music Director of the Düsseldorf Symphony. May 2015