In the 2010-11 season, CORRADO ROVARIS enters his seventh season as Music Director of the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Concurrently he serves as the Principal Conductor of the Italian Chamber Orchestra I Virtuosi Italiani, based in Verona, and maintains a guest conducting schedule in both the United States and Europe.
Mr. Rovaris opens the season in Philadelphia with a new production of Verdi’s Otello directed by Robert Driver. Other company productions this season include Tosca (directed by Jonathan Eaton) and the US premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s chamber opera, Phaedra. In addition, Mr. Rovaris leads the Curtis Opera Theatre’s production of Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, staged at the Kimmel Center in association with Opera Company of Philadelphia. In Italy, at the famed Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Mr. Rovaris will lead the rare Pergolesi opera L’Olimpiade and a new production of Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail in Treviso.
A regular guest in several of Italy’s historic opera houses, Mr. Rovaris’ experience includes multiple productions at Teatro alla Scala (Milan), Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Florence), Teatro La Fenice (Venice), Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and Rossini Opera Festival (Pesaro), where in summer 2010 he led the Festival’s premiere of an early Rossini opera, Demetrio e Polibio. Elsewhere in Europe he has led productions for the Opéra de Lausanne, Opéra de Lyon, Oper Köln and Oper Frankfurt, to name a few places.
In the United States, in addition to his work with the Philadelphia Opera, he has conducted several productions at the Santa Fe Opera (Simon Boccanegra 2004, La Bohème 2007, L’elisir d’amore 2009), the Opera Theatre of St. Louis (Una cosa rara 2008), and Glimmerglass Opera (Das Liebesverbot 2008).
Symphonically, Mr. Rovaris has led ensembles such as La Scala Filarmonica, Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestra du Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Brussels), and the Danish Radio Sinfonietta.
Mr. Rovaris will participate in two significant developments in the coming season. He instigated and will conduct the Spanish premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s one-act masterpiece Ainadamar with a story loosely based on episodes in the life of author Federico García Llorca, who was executed near his home city of Granada at the Fountain of Tears (“Ainadamar”). The production by Mexican director Luis de Tavira will be presented at the Alhambra Palace for the Granada Festival and will be transported later in the same summer to the Santander Festival. Also next season, Mr. Rovaris will become the Music Director and Principal Conductor of a new Spring Festival, Artosphere, which is presented by the Walton Arts Center and will be programmed with events occurring throughout northwest Arkansas.
Last season, Mr. Rovaris made his first recording for SONY with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, and cellist Silvia Chiesa, featuring the cello concerti of Nino Rota.
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 fell into conducting almost by chance when, in 1996, he was thrust into that role to substitute an ailing conductor, and led a performance in Milan 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 the engagement led to an invitation to conduct at the Teatro Comunale in Florence. Following this success, Mr. Rovaris was invited to conduct Il Signor Bruschino at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro in 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 such as the 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 cambiale di matrimonio), Théâtre Municipal de Lausanne (Luisa Miller and Rigoletto) and Japan Opera Foundation (Tokyo) (L’italiana in Algeri) .
Making his US debut in 1999 with the Opera Company of Philadelphia in Le nozze di Figaro, Mr. Rovaris quickly became a company regular, conducting L’Italiana in Algeri the following year, then Don Giovanni and La Traviata, which eventually lead to his appointment as the company’s music director in 2004. Last season he led Madama Butterfly, La Traviata and Orphée et Euridice. In October 2008 he conducted the Tucker Gala with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, featuring among other guest soloists Susan Graham and Bryn Terfel. He has also established a close connection with the Curtis Institute of Music, leading a joint Curtis/Opera Company of Philadelphia production of Berg’s Wozzeck in 2009, with plans for joint productions in future seasons.
Last updated Octover 2010. Contact Opus 3 Artists for the most up-to-date version.
