< Previous: Friedemann Layer | Next: Carlo Montanaro >

Nicola Luisotti Conductor

Nicola Luisotti began his tenure as the new music director of San Francisco Opera in September of 2009 where he conducts four operas this season: Il trovatore, Salome, Otello, and La fanciulla del West. San Francisco Opera “has found an ideal new maestro in Nicola Luisotti,” proclaimed the New York Times while the San Francisco Examiner said that “under his baton, the San Francisco Opera Orchestra sparkles, shimmers, storms, and, most importantly, sings the music as this listener has rarely heard it over several decades.” His first few weeks in San Francisco were marked by important civic and community events: Maestro Luisotti served as Civic Grand Marshal of the 141^st annual Italian Heritage Parade, the oldest civic event of its kind in the United States, and performed for audiences numbering more than 40,000 in a free concert in Golden Gate Park and a free live simulcast of Il trovatore at AT&T Park.

In demand around the world both in the opera house and on the concert stage, Maestro Luisotti’s 2009-2010 season also includes appearance in London, Bologna, Tokyo, Torino, and Naples. As principal guest conductor of the Tokyo Symphony, Luisotti will lead 3 semi-staged performances of Così fan tutte in Suntory Hall. He will conduct Aida at London’s Royal Opera House, in a new production by David McVicar and Salome at Bologna’s Teatro Comunale in a new production by Gabriele Lavia. On the concert stage Maestro Luisotti leads Bologna’s Orchestra del Teatro Comunale in works by Prokofiev and Stravinsky and Torino’s Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI in a program featuring the Bach Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto and the Brahms Fourth Symphony. In the conclusion of Luisotti’s 2009-2010 season, he conducts Orff’s monumental Carmina Burana leading the combined forces of the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro alla Scala and Teatro San Carlo di Napoli. This co-presentation between two legendary companies will take place in the Naples historic Piazza Plebiscito on July 22, 2010. Maestro Luisotti has future opera engagements booked throughout the world including the Metropolitan Opera and Teatro alla Scala.

This is for information only and should not be reproduced. Please see full biography for further details.