Pietro Rizzo | OperaDomani Artists Management

Pietro Rizzo

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Pietro Rizzo is one of the most talented young Italian conductors in his generation; notwithstanding his very young age, he has already conducted in many important opera houses and concert halls in an operatic repertoire including more than forty titles. In the last two seasons he enjoyed huge successes in his debuts at the Metropolitan Opera (Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci), at the Dallas Opera (La Bohéme), at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin (Nabucco), at Teatro Comunale in Florence (Cavalleria rusticana), at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm (La Bohème).

Born in 1973, he started his musical studies as a violin player, obtaining his degree in 1992 at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He then specialized at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, where he obtained a “Diploma di Merito” in 1992 and 1993, at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas. From 1997 to 2000 he studied conducting with Leif Segerstam and Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, obtaining his Master in conducting.

From 2000 to 2003 he performed an intense activity at the Finnish National Opera (Madama Butterfly, La Bohème, Anna Bolena, Il Trovatore, Cenerentola, Il Viaggio a Reims, Don Carlos, 5 acts version), continuing since 2003 as guest conductor, with at least one title per season.

From 2003 to 2007 he has been Erste Kapellmeister at the Aalto Theater in Essen, conducting more than seventy shows each season between operas, concerts and ballets.

From 2006 to 2009 he was principal conductor at the Opera in Goteborg, Sweden, where he conducted several productions of Falstaff, La Traviata, Faust, Evgenij Onegin, La Bohème, as well as many symphonic concerts.

He has also conducted in some of the most prominent opera companies in Finland, as well as the Wiener Volksoper (La Traviata, Il Turco in Italia, Falstaff), Rimsky Korsakov State Opera Theatre in St. Petersburg (Otello), Rossini Opera Festival (Il Viaggio a Reims), Turku Festival, Savonlinna Opera Festival (Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci), Opera Festival in Dalhalla, Staatstheater Braunschweig (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), allo Stadttheater Bern (Il Viaggio a Reims), New Israeli Opera (Il Viaggio a Reims), Teatro Calderon in Valladolid (Macbeth), Teatro Municipal de Palma de Mallorca (Faust).

On the concert platform we remember: Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Orchestra of Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Orchestra of the Finnish Radio in Helsinki, Tampere Philharmonic, Belgian Radio Orchestra in Bruxelles, Essener Philharmoniker, Bergische Symphoniker, WDR Rundfunkorchester in Koln, Aalborg Symfoniorkester (Denmark), Filarmonica de Ovideo in Spain. Ha has recorded for the Finnish Radio, Swedish Television and has recently recorded a cd with WDR Radio Orchestra in Koln for Telos.

He also dedicates a big part of his career in an intense activity with young musicians. This year he was nominated musical director of the Orquesta Joven de la Sinfonica de Galicia, in La Coruña, Spain, which he conducts regularly since 2003; since 2002 he's guest teacher at the Flemish Opera's Operastudio (Gent, Belgium), where he holds masterclasses on the operatic repertoire. Since 2006 he's guest teacher at the SNOA (Swedish National Orchestra Academy) at Goteborg's University, where he teaches masterclasses on symphonic repertoire and conducts several concerts.

Among his future engagements: La Bohéme at Teatro Calderón in Valladolid, La Rondine and Don Carlo in Helsinki, his debut at the New National Theatre in Tokyo with Il Trovatore, Attila in Koln. With Edita Gruberova he will perform: La Straniera (cd recording) in Munich, Wien, Salzburg, Norma at the Wiener Staatsoper, Lucrezia Borgia in Hamburgo, Roberto Devereux at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and in Koln, Anna Bolena and Esclarmonde (cd recording) at the Musikverein in Wien.