Kim, Eun Sun

(Seoul, South Korea)

San Francisco Opera Highlights: Conductor, Antony and Cleopatra; Dialogues of the Carmelites; La Traviata; Rusalka; Tosca; Fidelio; The Centennial Celebration; Eun Sun Kim Conducts Verdi; Live and In Concert: The Homecoming; Adler Fellows Concert: The Future Is Now

Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim is the Caroline H. Hume Music Director of San Francisco Opera. She made her highly anticipated Company debut conducting Rusalka in 2019. Her presence in North America was first established with performances of Verdi's Requiem with the Cincinnati Symphony and La Traviata with Houston Grand Opera, with the latter earning her an appointment as Principal Guest Conductor.

In the 2022–23 season, Kim continues a series of important operatic debuts with La Bohème at Milan's Teatro all Scala and returns to the Vienna State Opera to conduct that same work. Elsewhere, Kim leads the Rotterdam Philharmonic in staged performances of Verdi's Requiem at Dutch Nationa Opera. Kim has enjoyed recent North American successes at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera and Houston Grand Opera. Her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic was quickly followed by debut engagements with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Toronto Symphony and Seattle Symphony.  

A regular guest conductor at European opera houses, Kim maintains a particularly close connection with the Berlin State Opera (La Traviata, Ariadne auf Naxos, Madama Butterfly, Un Ballo in Maschera, Il Trovatore). She has also led productions at the Bavarian State Opera (Hänsel und Gretel), Stuttgart State Opera (Madama Butterfly), Semperoper Dresden (Rigoletto), Cologne Opera (Lucia di Lammermoor) and Frankfurt Opera (La Sonnambula, The Count of Luxembourg, La Bohème, Die Csárdásfürstin, Der Fliegende Höllander). Her Scandinavian engagements have taken place at the Royal Swedish Opera (Madama Butterfly, Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Copenhagen's Royal Danish Opera (Il Trovatore) and opera houses in Oslo (Carmen) and Bergen (Madama Butterfly, Der Fliegende Höllander), as well as concert appearances with Gothenburg Symphony, Norwegian Radio Orchestra and orchestras in Malmö, Umeå and Aarhus. 

Kim's other recent assignments have included a new production of Die Fledermaus with English National Opera; Carmen at Opernhaus Zürich; Hänsel und Gretel, Carmen and Die Fledermaus at Volksoper Wien; Il Viaggio a Reims at Madrid's Teatro Real; La Traviata at Opéra de Marseilles and La Bohème with Oper Graz. European concert performances comprise appearances with Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn and Stuttgart Philharmonic, as well as orchestras in Madrid, Marseille, Munich, Lille, Nancy, Palermo, Turin and Santiago de Compostela.

Kim studied composition and conducting in her hometown of Seoul before continuing her studies in Stuttgart, where she graduated with distinction. Directly after graduation, she was awarded First Prize in the International Jesús López-Cobos Opera Conducting Competition at the Teatro Real.