Spanish Conductor Ramón Tebar is currently Principal Conductor in Association with the Orquesta de Valencia, as well as Artistic Director of Opera Naples. He was previously Artistic Director of the Florida Grand Opera and Principal Guest Conductor of Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia.
Alongside his work in Valencia, the 2022–23 season will see Ramón Tebar make his debuts with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Norrlandsoperans symfoniorkester, the Würth Philharmoniker, and at the Frankfurt Opera with a new production of Saverio Mercadante’s Francesca da Rimini. This season, he will also return to the Teatro Colón to conduct Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles, and to the Szczecin Philharmonic and the Basque National Orchestra in Bilbao for concerts.
Highlights of Tebar’s 2019–20, 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons included his return to the Vienna State Opera conducting Turandot, Don Pasquale and a ballet project centered on Gustav Mahler’s 4th Symphony, as well as to the Cincinnati Opera for Carmen. In those seasons, he also debuted at Royal Swedish Opera with a production of La Cenerentola, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Madama Butterfly, the Gothenburg Opera for Tosca and at the Savonlinna Festival for Carmen. Elsewhere, he debuted with the Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie Chemnitz, led Florida Grand Opera’s production of Madama Butterfly, and conducted a special concert with Joseph Calleja, Christian Van Horn, Sondra Radvanovsky and Marvic Monreal that was streamed in collaboration with Classic FM from the famous St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Malta.
The 2018–19 season marked the beginning of Tebar’s tenure as Music Director in Valencia, which was celebrated with an exploration of Mendelssohn’s music and performances of Mahler’s 2nd and 10th symphonies. Elsewhere in the 2018–19 season, he led a production of La bohème at Vienna State Opera and Florida Grand Opera, as well as Aida and Haydn’s L’isola disabitata in Naples, FL; Otello in Pamplona’s Baluarte theater; and Roméo et Juliette at Cincinnati Opera. He also made symphonic guest appearances returning to the Spanish National Orchestra and Münchner Rundfunkorchester, and debuted with the Daejeon Philharmonic in Korea, and the Aalborg Symphony in Denmark.
The 2017–18 season saw Tebar successfully debut at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu on L’elisir d’amore, after which he debuted at the Vienna State Opera for Madama Butterfly. Following those performances, he was immediately re-invited for two more titles in Vienna in the 2019–20 season. Also in 2017–18, Tebar led Florida Grand Opera’s production of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, one of a number of Spanish-language works in his repertoire, including El gato montés, which he performed at Madrid’s Teatro de la Zarzuela that same season. Further opera productions in Tebar’s 2017–18 season included Don Carlo (Valencia), Un ballo in maschera (A Coruña), L’elisir d’amore (Opera Naples), Il trovatore (Oviedo), Madama Butterfly (Opera Naples), and Le nozze di Figaro (Opera Naples).
The 2016–17 season brought returns to the Teatro Regio di Parma for a production of Giovanna d’Arco and to Ópera de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria for Rigoletto, while as Principal Guest Conductor he led Sofia Coppola’s production of La traviata at Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía. His productions at Florida Grand Opera that season included Carmen and Un ballo in maschera, and at Opera Naples he conducted Turandot, Die Zauberflöte, and Daniel Catán’s La hija de Rappaccini (“Rappaccini’s Daughter”).
Tebar made his debut in Las Palmas in the 2015–16 season conducting Simon Boccanegra, and kept busy in Florida with Florida Grand Opera’s productions of Il barbiere di Siviglia and Don Pasquale, alongside Opera Naples’ productions of Die Fledermaus, Don Pasquale and La traviata. That same season, he conducted David McVicar’s production of Aida in Valencia. Earlier in the 2014–15 season, Tebar returned to Cincinnati Opera for Turandot and made his debut as Principal Guest Conductor in Valencia conducting Nabucco, for which he was praised as having “a true Verdi sense.” That season, he also conducted Madama Butterfly and Così fan tutte at Florida Grand Opera, as well as La bohème, Così fan tutte, Maria de Buenos Aires, and La Tragédie de Carmen at Opera Naples.
In addition to his operatic career and his role as Music Director of the Orquestra de Valencia, Tebar is sought after as a guest conductor with orchestras around the world. He has conducted the Spanish National Orchestra several times, and he further guested with many of Spain’s other orchestras, including the Barcelona Symphony, RTVE Orchestra in Madrid, Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, and the orchestras in Castilla y León, Cordoba, Galicia, Gran Canaria, Navarra and Oviedo, to name a few. Beyond Spain, Tebar has guest conducted such orchestras as the Philharmonia in London, Prague Philharmonia, Het Gelders Orkest, Malaysian Philharmonic, Armenian Philharmonic, Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen Normandie, Szczecin Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, and the Orquestra Sinfónica Nacional de Perú. Tebar was also previously Artistic Director of the Santo Domingo Music Festival in Puerto Rico.
Earlier in his career, Tebar conducted further opera titles such as Lucia di Lammermoor, La sonnambula, Thaïs, La rondine and M.D. Levy’s Mourning Becomes Electra (Florida Grand Opera), as well as I puritani (Teatro Lirico di Cagliari), L’Italiana in Alegri (Teatro Regio Torino), Tosca (Teatro Villamarta), Falla’s La vida breve and Moncayo’s La mulata de Córdoba (Palacio Bellas Artes, Mexico City), and West Side Story (A Coruña). Tebar has also appeared at Opera Colorado (Florencia en el Amazonas) and Theatro Municipal de São Paulo (Carmen).
Tebar’s work can also be heard on recordings with Joseph Calleja and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana on the DECCA label, and with Gregory Kunde and the Orquesta Sinfonica de Navarra on Universal.