Corrado Rovaris is Music Director of the Opera Company of Philadelphia (since 2005), and Principal Conductor of the Orchestra I Virtuosi Italiani.
    
A regular guest in many of the Italy’s most prestigious opera houses, Mr. Rovaris’ opera history includes multiple productions at Teatro alla Scala (Milan), Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Florence), Teatro La Fenice (Venice), Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Opera de Lyon, Theatre Municipal de Lausanne, and the Rossini Opera Festival (Pesaro), to name a few.   In symphonic repertoire, he regularly conducts the Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Danish Radio Sinfonietta, the Orchestra de la Theatre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels), Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), and Orchestra Sinfonica Giuseppe Verdi (Milan).

Mr. Rovaris opens his 2009/2010 season conducting in Jesi, Italy at the festival devoted to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, conducting the rare opera Il Prigioniero Superbo as well as concerts.  At the Opera Company of Philadelphia, he begins the season with Madama Butterfly, directed by Cynthia Stokes.  Later this season, he conducts productions of La Traviata and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in the Berlioz orchestration, featuring Ruxandra Donose.  In Europe Mr.  Rovaris leads the Lausanne Opera production of Rossini’s Otello in February 2010, as well as concerts throughout Italy with his orchestra I Vituosi Italiani.  

This season, Mr. Rovaris will also make his first recording for SONY with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, featuring the cello concerti of Nino Rota, and cellist Silvia Chiesa.   

Each season Mr. Rovaris leads his own orchestra in Italy throughout the country.  In January 2009 he led the Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali in Milan, and in that same month into February, I Virtuosi Italiani.  Other orchestras he conducted last season include the Orchestra Sinfonica del Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, with Benedetto Lupo.  

Born in Bergamo, Italy, Mr. Rovaris studied organ and composition at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory of Milan, after which he served as assistant chorus master at the Teatro alla Scala (Milan) from 1992 until 1996.    He began conducting almost by accident when in 1996 in Milan, he was thrust into that role by virtue of a conductor’s falling ill and, there being no substitute available, he led a performance of Il filosofo  di campagna by the Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi.  This production, by a noted Italian touring company AsLiCo, subsequently toured many of the opera houses throughout Italy, and led to an invitation to conduct at the Teatro Comunale in Florence.  Following this success, he was invited to conduct Il Signor Bruchino at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro 1997, and again in 1998, for the Festival’s opening production of Otello.

From this accidental beginning Mr. Rovaris soon began appearing in many of the major Italian houses including Teatro alla Scala (Il Signor Bruschino, Un Giorno di Regno, Il barbiere di Siviglia, L’italiana in Algeri),  Teatro La Fenice (Don Pasquale), Teatro dell’Opera di Roma (L’elisir d’amore) and internationally for the Opera de Lyon (La cambile di matrimonio), Theatre Municipal de Lausanne (Luisa Miller and Rigoletto) and Japan Opera Foundation (Tokyo) (L’italiana in Algeri) .    

Making his US debut relatively early in 1999 with the Opera Company of Philadelphia (Le nozze di Figaro), he quickly became a company regular, conducting L’Italiana in Algeri the following year, Don Giovanni, and La Traviata, which eventually lead to his appointment as the company’s music director in 2004.  Last season he led Rossini’s  l’Italiana in Algeri, (featuring Lawrence Brownlee and Ruxandra Dunose,) and a double-bill of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilege and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.  In October 2008 he conducted the Tucker Gala, with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, featuring among others guest soloists Susan Graham and Bryn Terfel.  He has established a close connection with the Curtis Institute of Music this past year leading a joint Curtis-Opera Company of Philadelphia production Berg’s Wozzeck  with plans for joint productions in each of the next seasons.  

Elsewhere in the United States, Mr. Rovaris has conducted productions for the Santa Fe Opera (Simon Boccanegra 2004, La Bohème 2007, L’elisir d’amore 2009) and the Opera Theatre of St. Louis (Una cosa rara 2008).

Last updated November 2009. Contact Opus 3 Artists for the most up-to-date version.