Alberto Veronesi

Alberto Veronesi has been called a specialist in versimo opera, particularly in the works of Puccini, Leoncavallo, and Mascagni. While he is a master of the verismo genre, including the lesser-known efforts of these composers, his operatic experience is broader, taking in works by such disparate composers as Salieri and Bellini; in the orchestral realm, he has led performances of the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler, and Shostakovich, and has conducted a fair number of Italian contemporary works. In addition to his considerable versatility, Veronesi is among the busiest Italian conductors, typically holding as many as four posts at a time, most of them in his native Italy. But he has crossed the Atlantic a few times in his career and continues to do so: in 2010 he accepted the post as music director of the Opera Orchestra of New York, effective in 2011. Veronesi has made of number of recordings throughout his career, most of them available on DG, Chandos, Naxos, and Arthaus Musik. Alberto Veronesi was born in Milan in 1967. He studied conducting, piano, and composition at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He also had studies at the Siena Accademia Chigiana. In 1992 Veronesi founded the Guido Cantelli Orchestra, which served as the Verdi Conservatory's resident orchestra. Four years later he debuted with the orchestra at the Salzburg Easter Festival on invitation from Claudio Abbado. Veronesi's U.S. debut was at the 1998 Spring Festival of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in a performance of Salieri's Falstaff. Because of the success of these debuts and his other generally acclaimed concert activity, Veronesi was soon able to land two important posts, both of which he still holds: music director of the Torre del Lago-based Puccini Festival from 1999 and music director of Palermo's Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, from 2001. Other important debuts followed, including at Tokyo (2004) and Athens (2005), both in performances of Madama Butterfly. In 2006 Veronesi made the first in a series of recordings for DG, Puccini's neglected opera Edgar, with Plácido Domingo in the lead. Following the 2007 departure of Daniele Gatti as music director of the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Veronesi succeeded him, adding yet another important post. Among Veronesi's more acclaimed recordings is the 2010 effort of Leoncavallo's I Medici on DG, featuring the Florence Maggio Musicale Orchestra & Chorus, with Domingo, Daniela Dessì, and Carlos Alvarez.