Sébastien Rouland is general music director of the Saarländische Staastheater Saarbrücken since 2018/2019.
In spite of having studied violoncello, it became very early obvious that Sébastien Rouland was to become a conductor. Since 2002 he conducted opera-productions in cities like Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg, Marseille, Vienna, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, Essen, Berlin, Geneva, Lucerne, St. Gallen, Bergen, Lisbon, Tel Aviv and Mexico City, establishing him as one of the most accomplished and versatile conductors of his generation. His wide-spread repertoire ranges from the baroque (with historically informed interpretation on period instruments) to contemporary music.
In 2015 he made his successful debut with the Opéra national de Paris conducting Gluck’s Alceste. For the opening of season 2017/18 he conducted an acclaimed new-production of Gioachino Rossini’s Grand Opéra Guillaume Tell at the Saarbrücken State Theatre. This production was TV-recorded by the Saarländischer Rundfunk for Arte with a streaming being still available on Arte Concert. Meanwhile he was a guest conductor at the Royal Opera in Kopenhagen for a new production of Kuhlau’s Lulu and at the New National Theater Tokyo for a revival of Les Contes d’Hoffmann.
In concert he has worked with orchestras such as the RSO Frankfurt, the Orchestra of the Halle Handel Festival, the Badische Staatskapelle in Karlsruhe, the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, the St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra, the Camerata Zürich, the Orchestre philharmonique de Luxembourg, Les Musiciens du Louvre and the Orchestre National de Lyon.
His commitments during the season 2018/19 included, in addition to his subscription concert series with the Saarländische Staatsorchester, five new opera productions: Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte at the Hamburg State Opera, Bizet’s Carmen at the Aalto-Theater in Essen, Adam’s Le postillon de Lonjumeau at the Opéra Comique in Paris as well as Cherubini’s Médée and Gounod’s Faust at the Saarbrücken State Opera.
The production of La vie parisienne which he conducted at the Opéra national de Lyon has been published on DVD by Virgin Classics.