Roberto Abbado, awarded the prestigious “Premio Abbiati” by the Italian Music Critics Association for his “accomplished interpretative maturity, the extent and the peculiarity of a repertoire where he has offered remarkable results through an intense season” is currently the Chief Conductor of the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna and Music Director of the Korean National Symphony Orchestra. He studied orchestra conducting under Franco Ferrara at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, where he was invited – the only student in the history of the Academy – to lead the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia. He made his debut in the United States in 1991 in New York conducting the St. Luke’s Orchestra. Since then he has returned regularly to the US to lead the Symphonic Orchestras of the cities of Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, San Francisco, as well as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra – of which he is one of the “Artistic Partners” – working with soloists like Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, Nigel Kennedy, Gil Shaham, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Vadim Repin, Sarah Chang, Yefim Bronfman, Mitsuko Uchida, Alfred Brendel, Radu Lupu, André Watts, András Schiff, Lang Lang, and Katia and Marielle Labèque.
He was Music Director of the Münchner Rundfunkorchester from 1991 to 1998, of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia from 2015 to 2019, of the Festival Verdi in Parma from 2018 to 2022. He has worked with many ensembles, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouworkest, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Orchestre national de France, the Orchestre de Paris, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester and the MDR-Sinfonieorchester (Leipzig), the NDR Sinfonieorchester (Hamburg), the Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester (Stockholm), the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the Korean National Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.
Roberto Abbado has conducted numerous world premieres and new opera productions, including Fedora and Ernani at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York; I vespri siciliani at the Wiener Staatsoper; La Gioconda, Lucia di Lammermoor, La donna del lago, and the world premiere of Fabio Vacchi’s Teneke at La Scala; L’amour des trois oranges, Aida and La traviata at the Bayerische Staatsoper; Le Comte Ory, Attila, I Lombardi alla prima crociata, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Henze’s Phaedra – at its Italian premiere – and Anna Bolena at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Don Giovanni at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Simon Boccanegra and La clemenza di Tito at the Teatro Regio of Turin; La donna del lago at the Opéra Garnier in Paris; Ermione, Zelmira, and Mosè in Egitto at the Rossini Opera Festival; the Italian premiere of Marschner’s Der Vampyr at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, and more recently the world premiere of Arianna, Fedra e Didone at the Festival di Spoleto, Le Trouvère, Luisa Miller and Macbeth at the Festival Verdi in Parma.
A passionate interpreter of contemporary music, Abbado’s repertoire includes composers like Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, Goffredo Petrassi, Sylvano Bussotti, Niccolò Castiglioni, Azio Corghi, Ivan Fedele, Luca Francesconi, Giorgio Battistelli, Michele dall’Ongaro, Giacomo Manzoni, Salvatore Sciarrino, Fabio Vacchi, Pascal Dusapin, Henri Dutilleux, Olivier Messiaen, Alfred Schnittke, Hans Werner Henze, Helmut Lachenmann, John Adams, Ned Rorem, Christopher Rouse, Steven Stucky, Charles Wuorinen and Silvia Colasanti.
Particularly significant are his symphonic tours with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (Spain 2005), the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Europe 2006), the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (Europe 2007), the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (George Enescu Festival in Bucharest 2009), the Orchestra Verdi di Milano (Switzerland 2009), the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo (Russia 2011), and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (USA, East Coast 2011).
From previous seasons, notable highlights also include La Favorite at the Salzburg Festival (with Juan Diego Flórez and Elīna Garanča); Macbeth (directed by Bob Wilson) and Parsifal (directed by Romeo Castellucci) at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna; Rigoletto and Lucia di Lammermoor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; La traviata (directed by Ferzan Özpetek) and Simon Boccanegra in Hong Kong on tour, respectively with the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples and the Teatro Regio di Torino; La traviata at the Shanghai Opera; Lucia di Lammermoor at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris; Don Pasquale at the Ópera de Bilbao; Le siège de Corinthe at the Rossini Opera Festival; La Cenerentola at the Los Angeles Opera; Lucia di Lammermoor and Roberto Devereux at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo; the world premiere of Fabio Vacchi’s Janus; and Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Paris Opera.
Among more recent engagements are Idomeneo at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Lucia di Lammermoor at the Wiener Staatsoper, Otello in a new production directed by Federico Tiezzi at the Festival Verdi in Parma, Lucrezia Borgia and Madama Butterfly at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma; again at the Festival Verdi: Macbeth (in French), Un ballo in maschera (Gustavo III), La forza del destino, and the Divertissements from Nabucco in a world premiere modern-day performance within a symphonic-choral concert recorded for the album Vive Verdi! French Rarities and Discoveries; and Bianca e Falliero at the Rossini Opera Festival.
The engagements for the 2026/27 season include, in addition to several appointments in Seoul with the Korean National Symphony Orchestra: Samson et Dalila at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Rigoletto at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, as well as symphonic concerts in Bologna with the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna and in Genoa with the Orchestra of the Fondazione Teatro Carlo Felice.
His recordings include Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi (nominated “Best Recording of the Year” by the BBC Music Magazine in 1999), Rossini’s Tancredi (winner of the “Echo Klassik Deutsche Schallplattenpreis” in 1997), Don Pasquale with Eva Mei and Renato Bruson, Turandot with Eva Marton, Ben Heppner, and Margaret Price. For Decca he has recorded Verismo Arias with Mirella Freni, L’amour and Arias for Rubini with Juan Diego Flórez. For Deutsche Grammophon he has issued Bel Canto (“Echo Klassik Deutscher Schallplattenpreis” 2009), Revive – both with Elina Garanča – and a DVD of Fedora with Mirella Freni and Placido Domingo from from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Roberto Abbado was the first Italian conductor to lead the traditional New Year’s Concert at La Fenice in Venice on 1 January 2008 (Hardy Classic Video DVD). Moreover, three DVDs from the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro have also been issued: Ermione, for Dynamic; Zelmira with Juan Diego Flórez, Kate Aldrich and Gregory Kunde for Decca; Mosè in Egitto with Sonia Ganassi, Dmitry Korchak, Riccardo Zanellato and Alex Esposito under Opus Arte and Le siège de Corinthe under C major. For Dynamic he has recorded Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Le trouvère directed by Robert Wilson, Un ballo in maschera (Gustavo III) and Macbeth in French, which won the Premio Speciale della Critica Musicale “Franco Abbiati” 2021.
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