J. David Jackson made his conducting debut at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels with Don Pasquale, and has since won acclaim in Europe, Asia and America. He made his Metropolitan Opera conducting debut with the Richard Jones production of Hansel and Greteland returned to the Met in 2020 to conduct Porgy and Bess with Eric Owens and Angel Blue. Other conducting credits at the Metropolitan Opera include Simon Boccanegra and The Queen of Spades. His Werther at the MET was canceled due to the pandemic. He returns to the MET in the 2024/25 season to conduct The Magic Flute.
Recent credits have included the American maestro’s debut with the Hong Kong Philharmonic in a gala concert with Korean soprano Sumi Jo, and his Carnegie Hall debut with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Chamber Players. At the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania, Sicily, Jackson has led the choral-orchestral version of Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ and the Catanian prima assoluta of Handel’s Messiah. Other recent engagements have included Janáček’s From The House of the Dead and Messiah with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, The Turn of the Screw for the Trentino Music Festival, The Golden Cockerel with Novaya Opera (New York), Tosca at El Paso Opera, and a gala concert at the Smetana Festival in Litomyšl, Czech Republic, featuring soprano Debbie Voigt.
Past seasons have seen Mo. Jackson debut with War and Peace at the Canadian Opera Company, Faust at Genoa’s Teatro Carlo Felice, Weber’s Euryanthe at the Glyndebourne Festival, and Elektra at the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. He has conducted La Fanciulla del West and Simon Boccanegra with Kentucky Opera, Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Opera Omaha, Le Jongleur de Notre Dame at the Central City Opera Festival, and L’Italiana in Algeri at the Wolf Trap Festival, in addition to engagements at the Palm Beach Opera, the Théâtre de la Place in Liège, Belgium and the Slovenian National Orchestra.
At the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Mo. Jackson conducted Così fan Tutte, Die Zauberflöte and The Love for Three Oranges on highly successful tours throughout Belgium and Germany. As Music Director of the Intermezzo Opera Festival, he led the highly acclaimed European premiere of Mark Adamo’s Little Women. He has also conducted L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, Don Giovanni and Giulio Cesare at the Trentino Festival, Cendrillon and Turn of the Screw with the Siena Summer Festival, and Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen at the Manhattan School in New York.
A versatile artist, Maestro Jackson’s enormous operatic repertory includes everything from early Baroque to contemporary. He is noted for his interpretation of French and Russian opera, with acclaimed successes of Massenet’s Le Jongleur de Notre Dame at the Central City Opera Festival, and Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina, and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk with La Monnaie. His performances of Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades at the Met and War and Peace in Toronto were also critically praised. Since 1996, his new conclusion to Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina is regularly performed in Brussels and elsewhere.