Eun Sun Kim

Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim is the Caroline H. Hume Music Director of San Francisco Opera, a position she has held since 2021. The 2024/25 season has seen Kim make her highly successful debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with Tosca and return to the Berlin State Opera to lead Simon Boccanegra. At San Francisco Opera this season, she continues her long-term exploration of the works of Verdi and Wagner with new productions of Un ballo in maschera, Tristan und Isolde and Idomeneo. On the concert stage this season, she returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and makes her debut appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla, and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano.

Some of Kim’s notable orchestral engagements to date include the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Philharmonia London, Barcelona Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, and major North American orchestras such as the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Her collaboration with the National Brass Ensemble—featuring a new arrangement of Wagner’s Ring cycle—was released by Pentatone on the album Deified.

Kim appears regularly at many of the world’s leading opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera, Semperoper Dresden, the Berlin State Opera, the Opéra national de Paris, and Teatro alla Scala in Milan. On the heels of Kim’s Met debut, noted for an “assured technical command, subtlety and imagination,” The New York Times recognized her as Classical Music’s Breakout Star.

Kim´s tenure at San Francisco Opera has brought a new vision to the company’s second century, and has featured her on the podium for Il trovatore, Lohengrin, Dialogues of the Carmélites, La traviata, Fidelio, The Magic Flute, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and the world premiere of John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra. Her growing presence in North America has also led to acclaimed appearances at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, and Houston Grand Opera.

Beyond San Francisco, Kim maintains an active career in Europe, where she has recently conducted La bohème at both Teatro alla Scala and the Vienna State Opera, Les contes d’Hoffmann at the Opéra national de Paris, a staged Requiem by Verdi at Dutch National Opera, Carmen at Zurich Opera House, and Hänsel und Gretel at the Bavarian State Opera. She has also appeared frequently at the Berlin State Opera, Frankfurt Opera, Royal Swedish Opera, and Royal Danish Opera, with a diverse repertoire ranging from Ariadne auf Naxos, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La bohème, Die Csárdásfürstin, Der Graf von Luxemburg, Der fliegende Holländer, and Madama Butterfly to Un ballo in maschera, La sonnambula, La traviata, and Il trovatore.

Eun Sun Kim studied composition and conducting in her hometown of Seoul, South Korea, before continuing her studies in Stuttgart. Immediately after graduation, she won first prize at the International Jesús López Cobos Opera Conducting Competition at Teatro Real in Madrid.

March 2025

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