Winner of the 42nd Abbiati Award for Best Conductor 2022,
Gianluca Capuano has been principal conductor of Les Musiciens du Prince-
Monaco since 2019. He studied organ, composition and conducting at the
Conservatory in his hometown in Milan and went on to specialize in early
music at the Scuola Civica. He also studied theoretical philosophy at the
University of Milan.
He has appeared as a soloist and as a conductor throughout Europe, the
United States, Russia and Japan.
In 2006 he founded “Il canto di Orfeo”, an instrumental and vocal
ensemble with which he performs a wide-ranging Baroque repertoire, working
with some of the finest musicians and singers active in the field of
historically- informed performance practice. With his vocal ensemble he
has also taken part in perform-ances of Vacchi’s Teneke,
Raskatov’s A Dog’s Heart and Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten
at La Scala, Milan.
Gianluca Capuano came to international attention in August 2016, when he
stepped in at short notice to conduct Norma with Cecilia Bartoli
on the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival. Bartoli then invited him
to conduct further performances of Norma at the Théâtre des
Champs-Élysées and in Baden-Baden as well as a European tour of La
Cenerentola with Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco. He has also
conducted Hasse’s Leucippo; Vivaldi’s Catone in Utica
with Concerto Köln; Gassmann’s Gli uccellatori at the Cologne
Opera; Handel’s Orlando at the Dresden Semperoper; Così fan
tutte for OperaLombardia: Idomeneo at the Maggio Musicale
Fiorentino; a new production of La clemenza di Tito in
Karlsruhe; a new production of L’incoronazione di Poppea in
Nantes; Donizetti’s Pigmalione in a double bill with Mayr’s Che
originali! at the Donizetti Festival in Bergam; Spontini’s Le
metamorfosi di Pasquale at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and La
finta giardiniera at the Zurich Opera.
Gianluca Capuano made his Salzburg debut at the 2017 Whitsun Festival,
conducting Les Musiciens du Prince- Monaco in Ariodante and a
concert performance of La donna del lago, following this up in
2018 with a recital of arias associated with the legendary tenor Manuel
García and sung by Javier Camarena. Highlights from this program were
released on CD. He returned in Salzburg for Alcina; with “Il
canto di Orfeo” for Caldara’s La morte d’Abel; for Il
Trionfo del tempo e del disinganno and Il Barbiere di Siviglia
and most recently for Monteverdi, Gluck and Haydn’s Orfeo.
Other past engagements include: Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto
and Handel’s Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno in Cologne
Opera; Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and L’Elisir d’amore in
Hamburg; Ariodante, Il Turco in Italia, Cenerentola, Alcina
and Clemenza di Tito in Montecarlo with Les Musiciens du Prince
and on tour; Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste in
Rome; Il matrimonio segreto at the Dutch National Opera; Guillaume
Tell at the Chorégies d’Orange; Il Barbiere di Siviglia at
the Teatro Massimo in Palermo; Mozart’s Requiem in Bari; L’elisir
d’amore at the Teatro Real in Madrid; La Cenerentola and
Iphigénie en Tauride in Zurich; Cimarosa’s Il maestro di
cappella in a double bill with Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di
Susanna at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa; Pergolesi's Stabat
Mater in Lucerne; Le Nozze di Figaro and Ariodante
in Moscow and Alcina in Florence.
On the concert platform he has conducted the Orchestra of the Teatro
Comunale di Bologna in a program of works by Schubert and Anton Eberl. His
second CD for Decca, an album devoted to the legendary Pauline Viardot
showcasing mezzosoprano Varduhi Abrahamyan and Les Musiciens du Prince.
Recent and future engagements include: La Cenerentola in
Zurich, Munich, Vienna, Florence and Milan; L'Italiana in Algeri
in Zurich; Il Barbiere di Siviglia and L'Elisir d'amore in
Monte Carlo and Vienna; Monteverdi's Orfeo and Das Rheingold
in Monte Carlo; Giulio Cesare in Monte Carlo, Vienna and on tour
in Luxembourg, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne; Semele and
Norma in Munich; Don Pasquale in Vienna; Gluck's Orfeo
ed Euridice at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia; Orfeo ed
Euridice, La Clemenza di Tito and Mass in C minor KV. 427 in
Salzburg.
Semptember 2024