INTRODUCTION

Renato Balsadonna is rapidly becoming a highly acclaimed symphonic and operatic conductor after being already recognised as the most esteemed Chorus Director of his generation.

RECENT AND FUTURE ENGAGEMENTS

As an opera conductor, his recent and upcoming engagements include Madame Butterfly, La Traviata and Rigoletto for the Royal Opera House in London, Nabucco and Lucrezia Borgia for Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, Tosca and Norma for Opera Nice, La Traviata and Il Barbiere di Siviglia for Cincinnati Opera, Madame Butterfly for Teatro la Fenice in Venice, Lucia di Lammermoor for Teatro de La Maestranza Sevilla, and for Opéra Royal Wallonie de Liège, La Bohème for Opera North, La Sonnambula for Teatro Regio di Torino, I Pagliacci for Michigan Opera Detroit, Norma (Bel Canto Version) for Ópera de Oviedo.

On the concert platform, he enjoys regular collaboration with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, with whom he released a CD. He also appears internationally with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Lithuanian Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra.

In the late autumn of 2020, Renato Balsadonna led the London Philharmonic Orchestra for the British-Italian spinto tenor Freddie de Tommaso’s debut album ‘Passione’ by Decca Classics.

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Venice, Balsadonna enjoyed a long working relationship with Sir Antonio Pappano, who appointed him Chorus Director at Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in 1997. Balsadonna later joined Pappano at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, where he was their celebrated Chorus Director from 2004-2016. He also appeared as gust conductor with Frankfurt Opera, Teatro Verdi in Trieste, BBC Singers, the Accademia Nazionale of Santa Cecilia Chorus and Grant park Festival Chorus in Chicago. Maestro Balsadonna has further participated in numerous recording for EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Warner Classics, Opera Rara, Chandos.

AUDIO & VIDEO

Freddie de Tommaso’s debut album ‘Passione’ by Decca Classics (London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Renato Balsadonna) – 2020

Ludwig van Beethoven – Overture Die Weihe des Hauses, Op. 124 (Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Renato Balsadonna) – Nov. 2019

REVIEWS

Norma at Ópera de Oviedo – Oct. 2022

“Balsadonna, a conductor with notable choral as well as instrumental experience, was a kind of factotum of the performance. His direction not only marked entrances and tempi for the orchestra and the voices, but played the emotional and dramatic temperature of the work. Although the overture was already widely applauded, without a doubt perfect and clear in its conception, in its timing and its dynamics, the best thing about Balsadonna was its version of the last scene of the last act. Progressive, expansive and passionate intensification of the continuous melodies, infinite, Wagner would say, until reaching a unifying and total choral symphonic sonorous climax.”

– Ramón Avello, El Comercio 

La Traviata at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden – Apr. 2022

“Of the two conductors, I prefereed Renato Balsadonna’s stylish unfolding of mid-period Verdi in the later performance to Giacomo Sagripanti’s nervy-to-neurotic gear-changes and explosive outbirsts: it was a joy to hear the chorus almost eating out of their former chorus director’s hands, and the orchestra responding to the idiomatic flexibility of his beat. It’s good to know that, finally, Balsadonna is getting his due at Covent Garden. In this repertoire he’s a few cuts above several of the routiniers who get annual gigs with the Royal Opera.”

– Hugh Canning, Opera Magazine (June 2022)

La traviata at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden – Apr. 2022

“In the pit, Renato Balsadonna had an intuitive understanding of the score, illuminating Verdi’s rich instrumental palette and coaxing from the Royal Opera House Orchestra detailed accompaniments, memorably so from an eloquent clarinet in ‘Dammi tu forza, o cielo’ and haunting brass for the finale’s slow march.  The two preludes were both shapely creations too.”

– David Truslove, operatoday.com

Nabucco at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden – Jan. 2022

“[Daniel Oren] was replaced by the exellent Renato Balsadonna, the Royal Opera’s former chorus master, now a conductor thoroughly versed in Italian repertoire, and an entirely reliable pair of hands who managed to set niftier tempos than Oren had in December, while getting the orchestra to play with a precision (…) are all sturdy, if coarse, singers with ample, Covent-Garden-sized voices, but they are also generalized performers, lacking the alert italianità of the orchestral performance under Balsadonna.”

– Hugh Canning, Opera Magazine (March 2022)

La bohème revival at the Opera North – Nov. 2019

“…the orchestra under the direction of conductor Renato Balsadonna was superb and proved that one could understand the story by listening to the music alone. ”

– Amanda Hodgson, northwestend.co.uk

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