Roberto Abbado Artistic Partner

Acclaimed as “a conductor you want to hear again and again,” Roberto Abbado’s crisp, dramatic music-making, instinctive lyricism and evocative command of varied composers and styles have made him an esteemed conductor among orchestras and opera companies today.  His sophisticated and energetic conducting combined with superb communication skills have made him a favorite among musicians and audiences alike. 

Abbado is the recent recipient of the “Franco Abbiati” award of the National Association of Italian Music Critics. The Association honored him with the title Conductor of the Year for 2008 “for the maturity of interpretation and for his breadth and curiosity of repertoire, in which he has delivered remarkable results and an intensity which was manifested in  La clemenza di Tito by Mozart (Teatro Regio Torino) executed using classical period performance practices; in the contemporary opera Phaedra by Hans Werner Henze (Maggio Musicale Fiorentino);  in Rossini's Ermione (Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro); and for the rare Der Vampyr of Heinrich Marschner (Teatro Comunale Bologna).”  

A popular figure in the United States, Abbado has performed regularly with such orchestras as the Boston Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra, and maintains continuing relationships with the San Francisco, St. Louis, Atlanta and Houston symphony orchestras, as well as New York City’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Notably, his most extensive relationship is currently with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra where he is one of its first Artistic Partners, a position that has been extended for a second three-year term.

Abbado begins the 2009-10 season with a concert with Teatro Maggio Musicale of Florence at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest, Romania, performing the rarely heard Enescu Symphony No. 2 in a program also featuring Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. In October he leads performances with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, followed by a five-city Swiss tour with that orchestra including concerts in Bern, Geneva, St. Gallen, Zurich and Basel, before heading to the United States to conduct the Chicago Symphony.  Abroad, his season includes a return to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for a series of concerts featuring two different programs in Tel Aviv and Haifa, and in Italy performances with the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and the Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI in Torino.In the U.S. he makes a return to the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, St. Louis, and Seattle, in addition to his continuing collaboration with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.  During his five weeks with the SPCO he will explore symphonic music by Robert Schumann, combined with American and Italian contemporary composers.  He will also take part in the SPCO’s Stravinsky Festival where he will conduct both the SPCO and the Minnesota Orchestra in the same evening.  Abbado concludes the season with a new production by Luis Pascual of Rossini’s La donna del lago at the Paris Opera. 
  
Born into a dynastic musical family, his grandfather was a famous pedagogue of violin, his father was director of the Milan Conservatory, and his uncle is Claudio Abbado, the famous maestro. Roberto Abbado studied with famed conducting teacher Franco Ferrara at Venice’s La Fenice and Rome’s Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, where he was the only student in Accademia history to be invited to conduct the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia.  As Chief Conductor of the Munich Radio Orchestra (1991-98) he made seven recordings with the orchestra, and has worked extensively elsewhere in Europe including the Royal Concertgebouw, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Dresden Staatskapelle, Gewandhaus Orchester (Leipzig), NDR Symphony Orchestra (Hamburg), Vienna Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras.  In his native Italy, he has particularly strong relationships with the great orchestras, and regularly conducts the Filarmonica della Scala (Milan), Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Orchestra del Maggio Musicale (Florence) and the RAI Orchestra (Turin).

Well known for his work in opera, Abbado has led many new productions and world premieres, including the Fedora at the Metropolitan Opera (New York), I Vespri Siciliani at Vienna Staatsoper, La Gioconda, and Lucia di Lammermoor at Teatro alla Scala (Milan), L’Amour des Trois Oranges, Aida and La Traviata for the Bayerische Staatsoper (Munich), Simon Boccanegra and La clemenza di Tito with the Teatro Regio di Torino and Le Comte Ory, Attila, I Lombardi and Henze Phaedra at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. 

Abbado is also well known as a passionate interpreter of modern and contemporary music.  As a natural advocate for Italian composers, he frequently programs works by Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, and Gofreddo Petrassi, and contemporary Italians, such as Sylvano Bussotti, Niccoló Castiglioni, Azio Corghi, Luca Francesconi, Giacomo Manzoni, Salvatore Sciarrino, and notably Fabio Vacchi, for whom Abbado conducted the world premiere of Teneke at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala in 2007.

Not limited to Italian contemporary music, he also explores the music of French contemporary composers Pascal Dusapin, Henri Dutilleux and Olivier Messiaen, Russian Alfred Schnittke, German Hans Werner Henze and, in part due to his extensive travels among North American orchestras, an eclectic assortment of this continent’s living composers from Ned Rorem to Christopher Rouse, Steven Stucky and Charles Wuorinen.  

A prolific recording conductor, Abbado has made several recordings for BMG (RCA Red Seal) including award-winning performances of Bellini I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Rossini’s Tancredi. He recorded a recital disc of 19th century arias for Decca with tenor Juan Diego Florez and the Orchestra di Accademia di Santa Cecilia, titled “The Rubini Album,” and most recently a recital album titled “Bel Canto”with mezzo soprano Elina Garanča, on Deutsche Grammophon.  Other BMG releases include Don Pasquale with Renato Bruson, Eva Mei, Frank Leopardo and Thomas Allen, Turandot with Eva Marton, Ben Heppner and Margaret Price and a disc of ballet music from Verdi operas. He has also recorded the two Liszt piano concerti with soloist Gerhard Oppitz, a collection of great tenor arias with Ben Heppner, and a CD of opera scenes with Carol Vaness, both with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester. For Decca, he has recorded “Verismo Arias” with Mirella Freni.  His most recent release for the Stradivarius label is of two world-premiere recordings by contemporary Italian composer Luca Francesconi: Cobalt, Scarlet, and Rest.