Jonathan Webb was invited by Gary Bertini to take the position of permanent conductor at the Tel Aviv Opera House , where he was entrusted with the direction of over 40 operas, including Der Freischütz, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Macbeth, Samson et Dalila, Faust, Cenerentola, L’italiana in Algeri, L’elisir d’amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, Jenufa , The Cunning Little Vixen, and La Juive.
Invited by Teatro Sao Carlos in Lisboa , he conducted, in addition to numerous concerts, Eine florentinische Tragödie, The Miserly Night, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La Navarraise, Cavelleria rusticana,Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher with Isabelle Huppert as Jeanne d’Arc . Invited by Seiji Ozawa to the Saito Kinen Festival in Japan, he conducted the orchestra and instrumental groups of the festival, touring Japan and China also as a pianist and harpsichordist for the Ongaku Juku project for young musicians. At the invitation of Valery Gergiev he conducted Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk on the for a co-production between the Kirov Opera and the New Israeli Opera. He is often involved in projects dedicated to young musicians: he has conducted the Orchestra Cherubini in Ravenna (Poulenc and Menotti), Orchestra Giovanile Italiana in Fiesole (Stravinsky, Mahler and Silvia Colasanti’s premier of Il Minotauro), the Youth Orchestra and Choir of Santa Cecilia (Mendelssohn’s Oedipus in Kolonos as part of the “Colosseum 2000”, the reopening of the Roman amphitheatre as a performance venue for the first time in 1500 years). He is currently the musical director of the Camerata Strumentale Città di Prato.
Jonathan Webb has embraced a wide range of musical genres and styles in both concert and opera houses. He has collaborated with important directors including Daniele Abbado, Goetz Friedrich, Hugo de Ana, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Robert Carsen, Graham Vick, David Poutney, David Alden.
He has been a guest conductor at several European opera houses, including: Berlin (Deutsche Oper) Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, La forza del destino, Carmen; Wien (Volksoper) Don Pasquale, Der Zigeunerbaron, Die Zauberflöte; Köln La traviata; Sevilla (Teatro Maestranza) The Rape of Lucretia; Marseille The Saint of Bleeker Street; Nice L’Histoire du Soldat ; Dublin Le nozze di Figaro, Falstaff; Tenerife The Turn of the Screw ; Leed Opera North La traviata.
In Italy he conducted in Roma (Teatro dell’Opera) A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Napoli (Teatro di San Carlo) Elegy for Young Lovers, Così fan tutte; Firenze (Maggio Musicale) The Turn of the Screw, The Rape of Lucretia, Albert Herring; Venezia, (Teatro La Fenice) Tancredi, Elegy for Young Lovers, Don Giovanni; Palermo (Teatro Massimo) Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice; Genova (Teatro Carlo Felice) Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, The Rape of Lucretia, Il turco in Italia; Reggio Emilia, Bari (Teatro Petruzzelli) The Turn of the Screw, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Bologna, Parma, Catania, Cagliari; at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte; Ravenna, Pisa, Lucca, Livorno, Trento, Die Entführung aus dem Serail; Cremona, Como, Brescia, Ferrara, The Death of Klinghoffer, Modena.
He conducted Turandot for the Caesarea Festival in Israel , He has also been a conductor at the Festival of Coruña ,Spain, in Wexford, at Settembre Musica with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Rai of Torino , at the Liturgica Festival in Jerusalem and he conducted an unforgettable performance of Britten’s Curlew River in Perugia, Italy.
He was awarded the ‘Premio Internazionale Ultimo 900 Pisa 2000 nel Mondo’ ( 2004), ‘Le Muse – Polimnia’ by the Accademia Internazionale ‘Le Muse’ of Florence ( 2011), and the medal of the Associazione Pisana Amici della Lirica in recognition of his work in Tuscany with the Theatres for the Lyric City.
