Deutsche Grammophon has announced a long-term collaboration with Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The French-Canadian maestro, who has already appeared on the Yellow Label conducting Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette (filmed in 2008) and Bizet’s Carmen (filmed in 2010), will helm a new cycle of Mozart’s seven mature operas, launching in September with the release of Don Giovanni, recorded during last year’s Baden-Baden Summer Festival. The new disc features the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and soloists Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, Rolando Villazón, Diana Damrau and Joyce DiDonato.

Nézet-Séguin will follow this with Così fan tutte, featuring the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and recorded at this year’s Baden-Baden Summer Festival (July 11 & 14). Idomeneo, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Le nozze di Figaro, La clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflöte will follow over the next few years, all featuring Rolando Villazón in the lead tenor roles.

As music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the conductor is also scheduled to make a series of three recordings with that orchestra for DG, beginning with Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony due for release in 2013.

‘Following on from Deutsche Grammophon’s recent announcement of the new series of orchestral recordings from me and my Rotterdam orchestra, I’m absolutely thrilled to be extending our new relationship into the realm of opera,’ said Nézet-Séguin. ‘It is of course an extraordinary privilege to be asked to record not just one Mozart opera but all seven of the composer’s immortal masterpieces for a label that already boasts such a distinguished catalogue of historic Mozart performances. I’m honoured to be picking up their Mozartian baton and carrying it forwards into the 21st century.’

The conductor has been named music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra from September 2012, and is also music director of the Orchestre Métropolitain in Montreal and principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.