Italian conductor Alberto Veronesi has established himself as an accomplished conductor for modern times. An innovative artist with a vast knowledge of the operatic and symphonic repertoire and a consummate technique, Mr. Veronesi combines traditional musical ideas with an acute sense of enterprise, which has led to great success in his posts, performances, recordings and projects. Mr. Veronesi is widely respected and admired by fellow performers, critics, and audiences alike, and he has established relationships with prestigious orchestras and opera companies that are renewed season after season.
Mr. Veronesi is Music Director of the Opera Orchestra of New York, Music Director of the Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago, Artistic Director of the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, and Music Director of the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana. In 2010, Mr. Veronesi made his Carnegie Hall debut conducting the Opera Orchestra of New York in a double-bill of Massenet's La Navarraise and Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana starring Roberto Alagna, Elina Garanca and Maria Guleghina.
Mr. Veronesi has done extensive research on the operatic repertoire of the late 19th to early 20th Century by composers such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggiero Leoncavallo and Giacomo Puccini, among others. As a Deutsche Grammophon artist he has programmed and recorded lesser known works of Puccini and the Italian school of verismo in an effort to give this underexposed repertoire a wider audience with the hopes of establishing new masterworks. Since the series began in 2006, four complete operas have been released including a critically acclaimed recording of Puccini's early opera Edgar with Plácido Domingo in the title role, Mascagni's L'amico Fritz starring Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna recorded live at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the first-ever commercial recording of Leoncavallo's opera I Medici starring Plácido Domingo, Carlos Álvarez and Daniela Dessì with the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and Giordano's Fedora with Angela Gheorghiu in the title role, Plácido Domingo and the Orchestre Symphonique et Choeurs de la Monnaie. Other albums in the series include Puccini Rediscovered, a collection of original editions and alternative versions of famous Puccini arias and ensembles sung by Placído Domingo and soprano Violeta Urmana with the Vienna Philharmonic; and La Nuit de mai, an album of Leoncavallo songs and arias performed by Mr. Domingo, pianist Lang Lang and the Orchestra of Teatro Comunale di Bologna.
Born in Milan, Mr. Veronesi studied at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory, graduating with honors in piano, composition and orchestral conducting. As a student he founded the Guido Cantelli Orchestra, which has since remained in residence at the Conservatory. He directed the orchestra until 2000, including performances at the Salzburg Easter Festival (at the invitation of Claudio Abbado), Teatro alla Scala and Maggio Musicale.
In 1999, Mr. Veronesi was appointed Music Director of the Puccini Festival at Torre del Lago, where he has not only since conducted all of Puccini's operas but was also actively involved in the construction of a new opera house. In 2011, Mr. Veronesi will conduct Puccini's La Bohème, a production that won a Premio Abbiati Award from the Italian Music Critics Association in 2003. His recent performances at the Festival include Puccini's La fanciulla del West in honor of the opera's 100th anniversary and a gala concert with soprano Renée Fleming.
In 2001 Mr. Veronesi was named Artistic and Music Director of the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in Palermo, where he is performing complete cycles of symphonies by Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler and Shostakovich, as well as giving prominence to 20th-century Italian symphonic music and continuing to program contemporary works. He was also recently named Artistic Director of the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna.
As a guest conductor, Mr. Veronesi has led Salieri's Falstaff with the Orchestra Guido Cantelli and I Madrigalisti Ambrosiani at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Giordano's Andrea Chénier at the Tel Aviv Opera Theatre, Puccini's Madama Butterfly in Athens, at the NHK in Tokyo and at the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Italy, Puccini's Tosca and Le villi at Deutsche Oper Berlin, and La Bohème at the San Carlo in Naples. Mr. Veronesi lives in Palermo with his wife and young daughter.