Patrik Ringborg is one of Sweden's most prolific and internationally sought-after conductors with a vast concert repertory. Additionally, he has conducted over 90 operas, specialising in particular in the music of Wagner and Strauss.
Patrik Ringborg was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and studied there at the Royal College of Music from 1983 to 1987. He completed his studies with Strauss scholar Kurt Bendix. From 1989 he worked as a répétiteur at the Royal Opera in Stockholm, assisting the Music Director and conducting performances in the Royal Opera House. He also assisted the Music Directors at the Semperoper in Dresden and with Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. In 1993 he first conducted performances in the Royal Opera House.
From then onwards, Germany became his main country of work, beginning as conductor at Theater Freiburg. In 1997 he led a much-acclaimed performance of Salome with Terje Stensvold and Robert Tear, and was promoted to Deputy Music Director. From the same year until 2003 he conducted at the Aalto-Theater in Essen, where in 1999 he was appointed Principal Conductor and in addition to symphony concerts conducted over 20 operas. He also was the Artistic Director of the German Kurt Weill Festival 2000.
In 2006 Patrik Ringborg returned to Freiburg as Chief Conductor (notable productions being The Rhine Gold and Elektra ) and in 2007 he was appointed General Music Director at the State Theatre in Kassel and remained in this position for a decade.
Maestro Ringborg conducted the State Orchestra in over 150 concerts and 27 new opera productions. They include Wagner œuvres like The Flying Dutchman, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, Lohengrin, Parsifal, and Tannhäuser, Mozart operas like Magic The Flute and Così fan tutte, Puccini operas like Manon Lescaut and Turandot as well as more modern works like Dialogues des Carmélites, Lady Macbeth from Mtsensk, Aribert Reimann's Lear, and Hans Werner Henze's Orpheus. Following on from Salome in 2008, he presented new productions of Die Frau ohne Schatten, Der Rosenkavalier and Elektra. Mr. Ringborg was also President of the Orchestra Academy, Founder of the Opera Studio and Artistic Director of the Gustav-Mahler-Festtage in Kassel.
Following his debut in 2004 with Werther, Patrik Ringborg has conducted new productions of Lady Macbeth from Mtsensk and Tosca at the Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar, where he also conducted the Staatskapelle Weimar on tour and in symphony concerts. In 2015 he returned with Mahler's 3rd symphony.
He was also a guest conductor at the Staatsoper Dresden, the Volksoper in Vienna, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In February 2010 his debut at the Opera House in Cologne followed in Der Rosenkavalier (including Dame Kiri Te Kanawa's farewell performances). In the same year, the Stockholm Royal Opera presented Elektra under his baton at the Opera Festival in Savonlinna – an opera with which he had debuted in a new production at the Norwegian National Opera in 2009. In 2014 he returned to Oslo with a première of Don Giovanni and in 2023 follows a revival of Eugen Onegin. In 2020 he prepared the new production of Die Walküre in Trondheim.
Patrik Ringborg has been engaged as a guest conductor by over thirty German orchestras such as the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Orchestra of Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Munich Radio Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Staatskapelle in Weimar, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, and the Gürzenich Orchestra.
He also conducted concerts in Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Spain, and Hong Kong. He is a frequent guest with the National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin.
Patrik Ringborg has worked with all main Swedish orchestras.
The Gothenburg Opera appointed him Principal Guest Conductor in the year 2000. He had already made his debut there in 1998 with Tannhäuser and subsequently conducted all Wagner productions until 2006. After Lohengrin followed the much-acclaimed première of Tristan und Isolde in 2003, after which the Orchestra of the Gothenburg Opera was awarded the Opera Prize of the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet and Patrik Ringborg was nominated for the Opera Prize founded by the Swedish journal, Tidskriften Opera.
In the subsequent season, he conducted a production of Die Walküre. 2011 he returned with a new production of Salome (directed by Peter Konwitschny) and continued his cooperation with this company in the world première of Gefors’ Notorious (2015), directed by Keith Warner and with Nina Stemme in the title role. A production of Patrik Ringborg's first Ariadne followed in 2018 and 2022 he conducted an acclaimed production of Sir Arne's Hoard.
After his debut with the Gothenburg Symphony in 2013, Sweden's National Orchestra, he has been a frequent guest there as well.
In his hometown Stockholm, Maestro Ringborg returned to the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in 2008 to conduct the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony. A frequent guest there since 1996, he conducted the Award Ceremony of the Birgit Nilsson Prize for Yo-Yo Ma in 2022. The long-awaited opera debut at the Stockholm Royal Opera followed in 2013 with a new production of Parsifal directed by Christof Loy and in 2016 he returned to conduct the world première of Daniel Börtz's Medea and the 490 anniversary gala of the Royal Orchestra.
Patrik Ringborg first conducted the Malmö Opera Orchestra in 1992, and from 2022 is Principal Guest Conductor of Malmö Opera. During the season 2023/2024 he leads new productions of Death and the Maiden.
As the first conductor ever, Patrik Ringborg was awarded the Opera Prize of the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. He received the prize in 2014 for the new productions of Parsifal and The Rhine Gold in Sweden during the last season. In 2015, the magazine Opus selected Patrik Ringborg as number one on their list of the most important people in Swedish classical music. Patrik Ringborg is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and has a seat on its board. In 2022, he was awarded the gold medal Litteris et Artibus by His Majesty, King Carl XVI Gustaf and in 2023 he received the Hugo Alfvén gold medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
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