Michel Capperon

Chorus Master



Trained as a pianist, Michel Capperon was the pupil of Marcel Ciampi, Dominique Merlet and of Ginette Doyen. As a trained percussionnist also , he taught  these two instruments while studying to be a conductor, which led him to Strasbourg as a student of Jean-Sébastien Béreau. In 1983, he was hired as pianist and head of chorus in the Théâtre des arts in Rouen ; and the following year he was appointed second conductor and Chorus Master by Paul Éthuin. In Rouen he conducted La Belle Hélène by Offenbach, Der Zigeunerbaron by Johann Strauss, Ciboulette by Reynaldo Hahn, The Rape of Lucretia by Benjamin Britten,  La Chèvre de M. Seguin by Henri Tomasi, La Dame blanche by Boieldieu, but also ballets such as Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty or Prokofiev's Cinderella. In 2003-2004,  at the Opéra national du Rhin, he stood in for Cyril Diederich at the last moment for a performance of Donizetti's L'Italiana in Algeri, then he conducted  La Clemence de Titus by Gluck with the Jeunes Voix du Rhin, as well as several concerts. In 1990, he was engaged as Chorus Master in the Opera House at Avignon. At the same time he directed the choirs in the Chorégies d'Orange, where he worked with conductors such as Georges Prêtre, Jeffrey Tate, Marek Janowski and Michel Plasson. During the summer of 2000, he undertook a European tour with the Voices of Europe choir consisting of ninety young Europeans from nine « European capitals of culture ». Since September 2001, he has headed the chorus of the Opéra national du Rhin and rehearses them for all the operas, which has allowed him to acquire a vast, extremely diversified repertoire.