Corrado Rovaris is Music Director of the Opera Company of Philadelphia since 2005, and Principal Conductor of the Orchestra I Virtuosi Italiani. ... read full bio

Corrado Rovaris is Music Director of the Opera Company of Philadelphia since 2005, and Principal Conductor of the Orchestra I Virtuosi Italiani.

As 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 2008/2009 season conducting a new production designed by internationally-renowned artist Jun Kaneko of Beethoven’s Fidelio with the Opera Company of Philadelphia.  With that company he also conducts this season l’Italiana in Algeri, (featuring Lawrence Brownlee and Ruxandra Dunose,)  and a double-bill of L’enfant et les sortilege and Gianni Schicchi.  In October he conducts the Tucker Gala, with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, featuring among others guest soloists Susan Graham and Bryn Terfel.

Each season he leads his own orchestras in Italy, in concerts throughout Italy.  In January 2009 he conducts the Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali in Milan, and in that same month into February, I Virtuosi Italiani.  In February he conducts the Orchestra Sinfonica del Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, with Benedetto Lupo.  He returns to Philadelphia in March for a production of Wozzeck with the Curtis Intstitute.  

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 when, 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.  He was then invited to conduct Il Signor Bruchino at the 1997 Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, where he was invited again in 1998, for the Festival’s opening production of Otello.

From this accidental beginning Mr. Rovaris was soon 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 on in 1999 with the Opera company of Philadelphia (Le nozze di Figaro), he quickly became a company regular, conducting L’Italiana in Algeri the next year, Don Giovanni, and La Traviata, which eventually lead to his appointment as the company’s music director in 2004.  He was soon invited to conduct at the Santa Fe Opera (Simon Boccanegra 2004, and La Boheme 2007) and returns in summer 2009 for L’elisir d’amore, starring Dimitri Pittas and Jennifer Black.