Alexander Soddy

He ranks among the most sought-after conductors of his generation, and is regularly engaged by top orchestras and opera houses around the world.
In the 2024/25 Season Soddy will debut at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with Salome and return to some of the houses where he has become a regular fixture, including to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Fidelio; the Berlin State Opera with Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Il Trovatore and Kurtag’s Fin de Partie; the Metropolitan Opera with Aida and La Bohème; and for the first time in a number of years to the Hamburg State Opera with Salome. Concert engagements this season will see him debut with the Orchestra Sinfoncia di Milano and return to the Netherlands Philharmonic and the Bournemouth Symphony.
Some of the highlights of Soddy’s recent season include premiering Kirill Serebrennikov's new production of Lohengrin at the Opéra national de Paris, returning to Londons’ Philharmonia for a concert performance of Strauss’ Capriccio at the edinburgh International Festival, and making his Concertgebouw debut conducting the Netherlands Philharmonic in Mahler’s 5th Symphony.
Soddy is a regular guest at the leading German-speaking opera houses having led at Vienna State Opera a wide ranging repertoire including Vienna premiere of Alexander Raskatov’s Animal Farm but also such diverse repertoire as Otello, Elektra, Hänsel und Gretel, Carmen, Die Zauberflöte, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Salome, Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Parsifal, and at the Staatsoper unter den Linden Lohengrin, Der Rosenkavalier, Fidelio, Der Freischütz, La Bohème, and Die Zauberflöte. In the Anglosphere, Soddy has conducted the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, he has conducted Così fan tutte, Tannhäuser and Salome at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, as well as La Bohème and Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera. A sampling of Soddy's other acclaimed performances include Elektra at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Die Zauberflöte and La Bohème at the Bavarian State Opera, and La Traviata at Tokyo Nikikai Opera Theatre, Der Freischütz at Dresden’s Semperoper, La Bohème and Madama Butterfly at the Royal Swedish Opera, and a pairing of works by Arnold Schönberg and Frank Martin at the Oper Frankfurt.
Also a highly esteemed guest on the symphonic podium, Soddy has led concerts in recent seasons with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, London’s Philharmonia, the Bern Symphony Orchestra, the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Royal Swedish Orchestra, the Norwegian National Opera Orchestra, the Orquestra de Valencia, the Oregon Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, and the Bournemouth Symphony.
From 2016 to 2022, Soddy served as General Music Director of the National Theatre Mannheim, where he focused on the core repertoire of German and Italian opera. At the same time he was Artistic Director of Mannheim’s symphonic series, the Akademiekonzerten, where he made the work of Anton Bruckner and other great romantic composers central to his programming. Earlier in his career, he served as Chief Conductor at the Stadttheater Klagenfurt from 2013 to 2016 and as Kapellmeister at the Hamburg State Opera from 2010 to 2012.
Soddy received his education at the Royal Academy of Music, the University of Cambridge, and the National Opera Studio in London.