Roberto Abbado (Roberto Abbado) |

Roberto Abbado

“I want to listen to him again and again…” “A charismatic maestro full of energy…” These are just some of the reviews about the art of the outstanding Italian conductor Roberto Abbado. He deservedly occupies one of the honorable places among opera and symphony conductors of our time thanks to his clear dramatic concepts combined with natural lyricism, the ability to penetrate the essence of various composer styles and unite musicians with his intention, to find a special contact with the audience.

Roberto Abbado was born on December 30, 1954 in Milan into a family of hereditary musicians. His grandfather Michelangelo Abbado was a famous violin teacher, his father was Marcello Abbado, conductor, composer and pianist, director of the Milan Conservatory, and his uncle was the famous maestro Claudio Abbado. Roberto Abbado studied conducting with the famous teacher Franco Ferrara in Venice at the La Fenice Theater and at the Rome National Academy of Santa Cecilia, becoming the only student in the history of the Academy invited to conduct its orchestra. Having first conducted an opera performance at the age of 23 (Simon Boccanegra by Verdi), by the age of 30 he had already managed to perform in a number of opera houses both in Italy and abroad, as well as with many orchestras.

From 1991 to 1998, Roberto Abbado served as chief conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra, with which he released 7 CDs, and toured extensively. His track record of those years includes concerts with the Royal Orchestra Concertgebouw, the National Orchestra of France, the Orchester de Paris, the Dresden State Capella and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra (NDR, Hamburg), the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Orchestra, Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. In Italy, he regularly conducted in the 90s and subsequent years with the Filarmonica della Scala orchestras (Milan), the Santa Cecilia Academy (Rome), the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino orchestra (Florence), the RAI National Symphony Orchestra (Turin).

The debut of Roberto Abbado in the United States took place in 1991 with the Orchestra. Saint Luke at Lincoln Center in New York. Since then, he has been constantly collaborating with many top American orchestras (Atlanta, St. Louis, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Luke’s New York Orchestra). Since 2005, Roberto Abbado has been a guest art partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (Minnesota).

Among the partners of the maestro in joint performances are such renowned soloists as violinists J. Bell, S. Chang, V. Repin, G. Shakham, pianists A. Brendle, E. Bronfman, Lang Lang, R. Lupu, A. Schiff, M Uchida, E. Watts, duet Katya and Marielle Labeque, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and many others.

Today Roberto Abbado is a world-famous conductor who works with the best orchestras and opera houses in the world. In Italy, in 2008, he was awarded the Franco Abbiati Prize (Premio Franco Abbiati) – the award of the National Association of Italian Music Critics, the most prestigious Italian award in the field of classical music – as conductor of the year for “the maturity of interpretation, the breadth and originality of the repertoire”, as evidenced by his performances of Mozart’s operas “The Mercy of Titus” in Theatre Royal in Turin, Phaedra by H. W. Henze in the theater Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, “Hermione” Rossini at the music festival in Pesaro, the rarely sounding opera “Vampire” by H. Marschner in Bologna Municipal Theatre.

Other significant operatic works by the conductor include Giordano’s Fedora at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Verdi’s Sicilian Vespers at the Vienna State Opera; Ponchielli’s Gioconda and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala, Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges, Verdi’s Aida and La Traviata at the Bavarian State Opera (Munich); “Simon Boccanegra” in Turin Theatre Royal, “Count Ori” by Rossini, “Attila” and “Lombards” by Verdi in the theater Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, “Lady of the Lake” by Rossini at the Paris National Opera. In addition to the aforementioned Hermione, at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, the maestro also staged productions of the operas Zelmira (2009) and Moses in Egypt (2011).

Roberto Abbado is also well known as a passionate interpreter of 2007th century and contemporary music, especially Italian music. He often includes in his programs the music of L. Berio, B. Madern, G. Petrassi, N. Castiglioni, contemporaries – S. Bussotti, A. Corgi, L. Francesconi, G. Manzoni, S. Sciarrino and especially F. Vacca ( in XNUMX he conducted the world premiere of his opera “Teneque” at La Scala). The conductor also performs the music of O. Messiaen and contemporary French composers (P. Dusapin, A. Dutilleux), A. Schnittke, H. W. Henze, and when performing with US orchestras, includes works by living American composers in his repertoire: N. Rorem, K. Rose, S. Stucky, C. Vuorinen, and J. Adams.

The conductor’s extensive discography includes recordings made for BMG (RCA Red Seal), including the operas Capuleti e Montecchi by Bellini and Tancred by Rossini, which received prestigious recording awards. Other releases on BMG include Don Pasquale with R. Bruzon, E. May, F. Lopardo and T. Allen, Turandot with E. Marton, B. Heppner and M. Price, a disc of ballet music from Verdi operas. With tenor J. D. Flores and the Orchestra of the Academy “Santa Cecilia” Roberto Abbado recorded a solo disc of 2008th century arias called “The Rubini Album”, with mezzo-soprano E. Garancha on “Deutsche Grammophon” – an album called “Bel Canto “. The conductor also recorded two piano concertos by Liszt (soloist G. Opitz), a collection of “Great tenor arias” with B. Heppner, a CD with scenes from operas with the participation of C. Vaness (the last two discs with the Munich Radio Orchestra). A disc aria from verist operas with M. Freni has been recorded for Decca. The latest recording for the Stradivarius label is the world premiere of L. Francesconi’s “Cobalt, Scarlet, and Rest”. Deutsche Grammophon released a DVD-recording of Fedora with M. Freni and P. Domingo (play by the Metropolitan Opera). The Italian company Dynamic recently released a DVD recording of Hermione from the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, and Hardy Classic Video released a recording of the XNUMX New Year’s Concert from La Fenice Theater in Venice.

In the 2009-2010 season, Roberto Abbado performed a new production of The Lady of the Lake at the Paris National Opera, in Europe he conducted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra Municipal Theatre (Bologna), the RAI Symphony Orchestra in Turin, the Milan Verdi Orchestra on a tour of the cities of Switzerland, with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra performed at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest. In the US, he has performed with the Chicago, Atlanta, St. Louis, Seattle, and Minnesota Symphony Orchestras. With the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra he took part in the Igor Stravinsky Festival.

Roberto Abbado’s engagements for the 2010-2011 season include the premiere of Don Giovanni with R. Schwab in German opera in Berlin. He also conducts operas by Rossini, including a concert performance of The Barber of Seville with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem and a new production of Moses in Egypt at the Pesaro Festival (directed by Graham Wick), as well as Norma Bellini at the historic site Petruzzelli Theater in Bari. Roberto Abbado makes his debut at the Dresden Philharmonic with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and, after a break, conducts the Royal Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow and Edinburgh. In the US, he plans to perform with the Atlanta and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras. Collaboration with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra continues: at the beginning of the season – a concert performance of Don Juan, and in the spring – two “Russian” programs.

According to the press release of the information department of the Moscow State Philharmonic