Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

Houston Symphony Music Director Juraj Valčuha is recognized for his effortless expressiveness and depth of musicianship. With sharp baton technique and natural stage presence, the impressive ease of his interpretations translates even the most complex scores into immersive experiences.

Before joining the Houston Symphony in June 2022, Juraj was Music Director of the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, from 2016 to 2022 and first guest conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. He was Chief Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai from 2009 to 2016.

The 2005–06 Season marked the start of his international career on the podium of the Orchestre National de France followed by remarkable debuts in the United Kingdom with the Philharmonia London, in Germany with the Munich Philharmonic, in the United States with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and in Italy with Puccini’s La bohème in Bologna.

He has since led the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, Munich Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Rome, Milan’s Filarmonica della Scala, Montréal Symphony, and the NHK and Yomiuri orchestras in Tokyo.

He enjoys regular collaborations with the Minnesota Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. International touring with the Orchestra Sinfonica della Rai took them to the Musikverein in Vienna and Philharmonie in Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Zurich, Munich, to the Enesco Festival in Bucharest, and the Abu Dhabi Classics. With the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, he visited Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn to mark the 100th anniversary of the Baltic nations.

In Europe, he is acclaimed on the podium of the Munich Philharmonic, the NDR Hamburg and Frankfurt Radio orchestras, as well as the Vienna Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, BBC Symphony and Philharmonia London, and the Swedish Radio Orchestra.

Juraj champions the compositions of living composers and aims to program contemporary pieces in most of his concerts. He has conducted world premieres, including Christopher Rouse’s Supplica with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Steven Mackey’s violin concerto with Leila Josefowicz and the BBC Symphony in Manchester, and Nico Muhly’s Bright Idea with the Houston Symphony. In 2005, he conducted, in the presence of the composer, Steve Reich’s Four Seasons at the Melos-Ethos Festival in Bratislava. Other composers he has supported and continues to follow with interest are Bryce Dessner, Steven Stucky, Andrew Norman, James MacMillan, Luca Francesconi, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Anna Clyne, Julia Wolfe and Jessie Montgomery, among others.

Including his engagements in Houston, the 2023–24 Season took him to the Pittsburgh and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, San Francisco Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestra as well as to the Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra in Tokyo. On the European stage, he performed Fanciulla del West and Tristan and Isolde at the Bavarian State Opera and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Jenufa at the Opera di Roma. He led concerts with the RAI Orchestra, the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia, the Orchestre National de France, the NDR, SWR, and the Bamberg Symphony, among others.

In the 2024–2025 Season Juraj will join the Semperoper in Dresden with Strauss´ Salomé as well as the Paris Opéra Bastille with Janacek´s The Cunning Little Vixen and the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Tchaikovsky´s Pique Dame. In the coming months, in addition to his concerts with the Houston Symphony, he will return to the Munich Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, the London Philharmonic, the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchester, the San Francisco Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra in Tokyo.

Born in Bratislava, Slovakia, Juraj studied composition and conducting in his birthplace, then at the conservatory in St. Petersburg (with Ilya Musin), and finally, at the Conservatoire Supérieur de la Musique in Paris.

Ekaterina Gubanova studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the Sibelius Academy Helsinki. She started her career as a member of the Young Artists Program at the Royal Opera House in London.
She regularly guests at the major opera stages, including the Met in New York; the Lyric Opera Chicago; La Scala in Milano; the Rome Opera; London’s Royal Opera House; the Paris Opera; the state Operas in Vienna, Munich, Berlin, and Hamburg; the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theatres; the Gran Teatro del Liceu Barcelona; and the Teatro Real Madrid as well as the Bayreuth festival.
Highlights of her 2024-25 Season are new productions of Das Rheingold (Fricka) in Munich with Vladimir Jurowski, Rusalka (Foreign Princess) at the Teatro di San Carlo, Tannhäuser in Vienna, and a return to Paris for Don Carlos. Concert engagements take her to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Houston Symphony. She performs Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder in Naples, Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony in Vienna, and with Mahler’s Rückertlieder in Valencia.
In the past two seasons, Ekaterina made her highly acclaimed debuts as Kundry (Parsifal) in Vienna and Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana) in Athens. Among her most important roles are Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) and Fricka (Rheingold and Walküre). Her vast operatic repertoire also includes roles such as Eboli (Don Carlos), Amneris (Aida), Adalgisa (Norma), Giovanna Seymour (Anna Bolena), Marina Mniszech (Boris Godunov), Lyubasha (The Tsar’s Bride), Marguerite (Damnation du Faust), Mère Marie (Dialogues des Carmelites), Venus (Tannhäuser), and Ortrud (Lohengrin).
She is also a sought-after concert singer and works regularly with renowned orchestras and conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sir Simon Rattle, Myung-Whun Chung, Philippe Jordan, Kirill Petrenko, and Kent Nagano. Ekaterina is frequently engaged for Verdi’s Messa da requiem, which she has sung, for example, with Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev, and Riccardo Chailly. Her concert repertoire also includes works such as Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and his symphonies No. 2 and No. 3; Beethoven’s 9^thSymphony; and works by French and Russian composers.

In the 2024-25 Season, Hungarian bass-baritone Gábor Bretz, called “vocal nobility” by The Guardian, returned to La Monnaie/De Munt as Die Wanderer in Pierre Audi’s new production of Siegfried, conducted by Alain Altinoglu, after acclaimed performances there as Wotan in Romeo Castellucci’s new productions of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in 2023-24. Additional projects this season have included Dmitri Tcherniakov’s new production of Rusalka as Vodnik at Teatro San Carlo with Dan Ettinger and Salome at the Grand Théâtre de Genève; as well as Gurnemanz in Parsifal, Filippo II in Don Carlo, Méphistophélès in Faust, and the title role in Bluebeard’s Castle, all at the Hungarian State Opera, where Gábor has been a regular performer since graduating from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. In concert, he will join the Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar for Bluebeard’s Castle, and Pater Profundus in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Alain Altinoglu at La Monnaie/De Munt.
Highlights of previous seasons include the title role of Don Quichotte (Paris Opéra, Bregenzer Festival), Heinrich der Vogler in Lohengrin (Staatsoper Unter den Linden, La Monnaie/De Munt, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), Priest Grigoris in Martinů’s Greek Passion (Salzburg Festival), Jochanaan (Salzburg Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence), Don Pizarro in Fidelio (Theater an der Wien, Opéra Comique in Paris); Scarpia in Tosca (Theater an der Wien, Teatro Comunale di Bologna), Escamillo in Carmen (Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper, New National Theatre Tokyo, Staatsoper Hamburg), Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte (La Monnaie/De Munt), Ferrando in Il trovatore (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden), Philippe II in Don Carlos (Staatsoper Hamburg), Gurnemanz (Hallé Orchestra), and the Four Villains in Les contes d’Hoffmann (La Monnaie).
A busy concert artist, Gábor is most notable as the title role in Bluebeard’s Castle with the Berlin Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra, Oregon Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, Teatro Massimo Palermo, and Stavanger Symphony Orchestra.