VITA
Enrico Calesso, born in Treviso, is the Designated Permanent Music Director of the Giuseppe Verdi Opera Theater in Trieste, Principal Conductor at the Mainfranken Theater in Würzburg (Germany), Principal Conductor of the Würzburg Philharmonic Orchestra, and Permanent Guest Conductor at the Landestheater in Linz (Austria). The experienced conductor is as comfortable on the concert podium as he is on the opera stage and, thanks to his vast repertoire, is known for his competent and insightful interpretations. His philosophical background and clear interpretive ideas make Enrico Calesso one of the most interesting musical figures of our time.
Enrico Calesso has conducted orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchester, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice, the Orchestra del Teatro Verdi di Trieste, the Orchestra del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Bruckner Orchester Linz, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, the Orchestra del Puccini Festival Torre del Lago, the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trent, the Berner Symphonie-Orchester, the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, the Mantua Chamber Orchestra, the Münchner Symphoniker, the Staatskapelle Schwerin, the Norddeutsche Philharmonie, the Jenaer Philharmonie, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, the Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique of Mulhouse, and the Rzeszow Symphony Orchestra.
Information about "La Forza del Destino" at the Linzer Musiktheater:
"The Italian Enrico Calesso on the podium does not just draw his pictures dramatically, without any transparency in the music, but also projects himself with a greater elasticity into the feelings of the protagonists."
- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
After making his debut in 2016 for the Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice with the diptych Il segreto di Susanna / Agenzia Matrimoniale, he returned there in 2017 and 2018 for two revivals of La Traviata, in 2019 with the concertation of Pinocchio (P. Valtinoni) and last February with the concertation of the world premiere of Le Baruffe (G. Battistelli). With La Traviata he debuted with great success in 2018 at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and in 2019 at the Leipzig Opera, where he returned for the same title in the 2021/22 season. After his excellent performances of Don Giovanni (2017) and Il Trovatore (2020), he was appointed permanent guest conductor at the Landestheater Linz until 2026, concerting I Capuleti e i Montecchi (2020), Aida (2022) and La Forza del Destino (2023). In the 2023/24 season he will concert there the veristic diptych Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci. After achieving great public and critical success with his debut at the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago(Madama Butterfly, 2020), confirmed in 2021 with La Bohème, he returned there in 2022 for the concertation of Tosca . He made his debut at the Teatro Lirico Verdi in Trieste in the 2022/23 season with an acclaimed symphonic concert and musical direction of Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, a production that was a great and unanimous success with audiences and critics.
With Götterdämmerung he opened the first tetralogy of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen in the history of the Mainfranken Theater in Würzburg in 2019. For his performance of Götterdämmerung he was nominated for conductor of the year in the prestigious Jahrbuch 2019 of "Opernwelt" magazine. In the same magazine's Jahrbuch 2020 he was again nominated in the performance of the year category for his highly acclaimed concertation of Rigoletto in Würzburg. After concerting in the 2022/23 season Lucia di Lammermoor and L'affare Makropulos he will open the next season of the Mainfranken Theater with R.Strauss' Elektra .
His opera performances in recent years include such titles as Tristan und Isolde, Lohengrin, Salome, Ariadne auf Naxos, Elektra, Wozzeck, The Makropulos Affair, Die glückliche Hand, The Rake's Progress, Madama Butterfly, La Bohéme, Gianni Schicchi, Carmen, Lucia di Lammermoor, Otello, Aida, Macbeth, La traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Forza del Destino, La sonnambula, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, L'Africaine, Les Huguenots, Les Vêpres siciliennes, Nixon in China as well as continuous research in the Mozart and Rossini areas with several productions of Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Entführung aus dem Serail, Idomeneo, Die Zauberflöte, Italiana in Algeri, Cenerentola, Barbiere di Siviglia, and intense activity in the Baroque sphere, with rediscoveries such as Galuppi's Alessandro nell'Indie and Cherubini's Iphigenia in Aulide and important titles such as Händel's Rinaldo and Gluck's Orfeo .
In the symphonic field, the complete cycles of all Brahms Symphonies and Concertos, all Beethoven Symphonies, and the ongoing cycles of Bruckner and Mahler Symphonies with the Philharmonisches Orchester Würzburg stand out. In fall 2022 he made his debut in concert with the Bruckner Orchester Linz in a program with music by Martinu and Respighi. After his concert debut with the Orchestra of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari (January 2021), he conducted the 2022 New Year's Concert of the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento, to which he will return for a symphony concert in the 2023/24 season.
In 2011/12 he collaborated with the Bregenz Festival (Austria), conducting more than 20 performances of Andrea Chenier. Previously, he was music director of the Klosterneuburg Opera Festival (Vienna) for three seasons starting in 2008.
Enrico Calesso studied in Vienna in the class of Uroš Lajovic at the University of Music, graduating with highest honors, as well as being awarded the Würdigungspreis of the University of Vienna. Previously, he graduated in piano from the Conservatorio "Benedetto Marcello" in Venice under the guidance of Anna Colonna Romano, and received a degree in Theoretical Philosophy with highest honors from Ca' Foscari University with Prof. Emanuele Severino.
October 3, 2023