ROBERTO GIANOLA
Conductor
Roberto Gianola has developed an international career in opera, symphonic music and ballet, conducting in Europe, Asia, the United States, Latin America and the Middle East. His work combines particular expertise in Italian opera with a broad concert repertoire and extensive experience in ballet conducting.
Since May 2023, he has been Principal Conductor of the İzmir State Opera and Ballet, following a long collaboration with the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet, where he also served as Music Director and conducted numerous opera productions, ballets and symphonic concerts.
He has conducted in major international venues, including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna, the Seoul Arts Center, Smetana Hall in Prague and Sala Verdi in Milan.
In Italy, he has worked with Fondazione Arena di Verona, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Teatro Verdi in Trieste, Teatro del Giglio in Lucca, Teatro Coccia in Novara and Teatro Goldoni in Livorno. He has also conducted the Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali in Milan, Orchestra della Toscana, I Virtuosi del Teatro alla Scala, Cameristi del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Orchestra del Festival Pucciniano, Orchestra Sinfonica di Sanremo, Orchestra ICO della Magna Grecia, Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana, Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza and Orchestra della Provincia di Bari.
Abroad, he has collaborated with Theater Basel; the opera and ballet theatres of Istanbul, İzmir, Ljubljana and Maribor; the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb; and the Opera of Skopje. The international orchestras he has conducted include the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, Krasnoyarsk Symphony Orchestra, George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra in Bucharest, North Czech Philharmonic, Kharkiv Symphony Orchestra, Murcia Region Symphony Orchestra, the orchestras of Tenerife, Bratislava and Klagenfurt, Arpeggione Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México, University of Guanajuato Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Teatro de Bellas Artes in Mexico, Paraná State Symphony Orchestra in Brazil, Maracaibo Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela, Novi Sad Symphony Orchestra in Serbia, Cascais Orchestra in Portugal and, in the United States, the New England Symphony, Washington University Symphony Orchestra, Jefferson Symphony Orchestra and Riverside Orchestra.
His repertoire includes major works by Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, as well as operas by Bizet, Gounod, Offenbach, Mascagni, Leoncavallo and Cilea.
Recent engagements include The Merry Widow at Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania and, in October 2026, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci for Opera Hong Kong at the Grand Theatre of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. In recent years, he has also conducted Otello in Maribor, at the Ljubljana Festival and at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb; Il trovatore and I Capuleti e i Montecchi in Ljubljana; Aida and Turandot in Skopje; Manon Lescaut in Lucca; L’elisir d’amore in Cagliari; Lucrezia Borgia in Trieste; and Don Pasquale in Novara. In Istanbul, his productions have included Falstaff, Norma and Les contes d’Hoffmann, while in İzmir he has conducted La traviata, La bohème, Attila and Tosca.
Notable artistic experiences include conducting La traviata at the Seoul Arts Center with Mariella Devia, collaborating on a production of Nabucco with Plácido Domingo at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, and assisting Myung-Whun Chung in preparing Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, co-produced by Fondazione Arena di Verona and Teatro La Fenice for the centenary of the Arena Festival.
Alongside opera, he has an extensive ballet repertoire, including The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote, Giselle, Sylvia and Spartacus.
His symphonic repertoire includes Beethoven’s Seventh and Ninth Symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, Dvořák’s Eighth and Ninth Symphonies, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra and The Miraculous Mandarin, as well as Respighi’s Fountains of Rome and Pines of Rome.
In 2015, he received the Grand Prix dell’Opera in the conductor category at Teatro Regio in Parma. His discography includes recordings for Stradivarius with Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali and a recording devoted to Ottorino Respighi, made with the Sanremo Symphony Orchestra and published by Amadeus magazine.
He is the founder and artistic director of the Lake Como Philharmonic Orchestra and the Lake Como Music Academy. Through these organisations, he promotes opera and symphonic productions, masterclasses and international competitions, combining conducting with the development and delivery of musical and educational projects.
His engagements scheduled for 2027 include Verdi’s Macbeth and the ballets Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Don Quixote at the İzmir State Opera and Ballet, a symphonic concert for ORF TV in Vienna, and a tour with the Asian Youth Orchestra, with concerts in Hong Kong, China, Japan and Thailand.
