Kim, Eun Sun

Performance History(Seoul, South Korea)

Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim is the Caroline H. Hume Music Director of San Francisco Opera, a position she has held since 2021. The 2025-26 Season underscores Kim’s success as a symphonic conductor with a number of prestigious debuts, including with the Dresden Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. At San Francisco Opera this season, she continues her long-term exploration of the works of Verdi and Wagner with productions of Rigoletto and Parsifal, which are followed by Elektra in the company’s summer season. Elsewhere this season, she returns to the Teatro Real in Madrid for Carmen, the Bavarian State Opera for Madama Butterfly, and the Berlin State Opera for Ariadne auf Naxos, and also returns for concerts with the Minnesota Orchestra, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid.

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 Orchestra, Barcelona Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, and major North American orchestras such as the Los Angeles and New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony 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 featured her in landmark productions including Un Ballo in Maschera, Tristan und Isolde, Idomeneo, Il Trovatore, Lohengrin, Dialogues des Carmélites, La Traviata, Fidelio, The Magic Flute, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and the world premiere of John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra. Her prominence in North America’s operatic scene has been further underscored by acclaimed appearances at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, and Houston Grand Opera, and has extended beyond the theater with San Francisco Opera’s fall 2024 release of the feature-length documentary Eun Sun Kim: A Journey into Lohengrin, which was nominated for two Northern California Emmy Awards.

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 the Teatro Real in Madrid.

Instagram: @eskconductor