Roberto Abbondanza was born in Rome where he studied under soprano Isabel Gentile. Interested in the lieder repertoire, he specialised at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and at the Musikhochschule in Köln with Hartmut Höll. A finalist at the "Toti Dal Monte" International Singing Competition in Treviso and at the "Sperimentale" in Spoleto, he won the "Laboratorio Lirico" Competition in Alessandria and the "L'Accademia Barocca" Competition in Rome.

In the ancient and baroque repertoire, he collaborates regularly with Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante: recording of Scarlatti's Caino, awarded the Diapason d'or; first performance and recording for Virgin of SS. Trinità by Scarlatti; staging of Scarlatti's works by Massimo Puppieno; Il trionfo dell'onore (PREMIO ABBIATI 2001); La Principessa fedele and Carlo Re d'Alemagna at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo; performance of Vivaldi's La Senna festeggiante at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris; Handel's Lucio Silla at the Accademia Nazionale di S. Cecilia; Cavalli's Dido and Le virtù de' strali d'amore at La Fenice; Messiah in Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona; Agrippina at La Fenice, at the Halle Festival and in Krakow; Leo's oratorio S. Elena al Calvario at the Salzburg Festival. With Rinaldo Alessandrini and Concerto Italiano she sang in: Jommelli's L'isola disabitata with the Opera of Rome; Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda recorded for Opus 111, winner of the "Choc de l'annee 1999" and performed in Paris, Brussels, Madrid, Copenhagen, Köln, Oslo, Tokyo, Kyoto, Singapore, at the Colon in Buenos Aires and in S. Paolo of Brazil.

In Italy, he sang at La Scala, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Accademia Nazionale di S. Cecilia and the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, La Fenice and the Biennale di Venezia, the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, the Arena di Verona, the Comunale in Bologna, the Carlo Felice in Genoa, the Petruzzelli in Bari and with the Orchestra Nazionale della RAI.

Abroad, he has performed in Monte Carlo, Lyon, Nice, Nancy, Montpellier, Bordeaux, Lisbon, Barcelona, Bilbao, Vienna, Manchester (BBC Philharmonic), Budapest, New York, Washington, Toronto, Mexico City, Istanbul, Taipei, Hong Kong, etc.

He has collaborated, among others, with conductors Myung Whun Chung, Zubin Mehta, Gianandrea Noseda, Bruno Bartoletti, Zoltan Pesko, Alan Curtis, Alessandro De Marchi, Gabriele Ferro, Gustav Kuhn, Charles Mackerras, Andrea Molino, Paolo Olmi, Renato Palumbo, Marcello Panni, Evelino Pidò, Jordi Savall, Michel Tabachnik, Arturo Tamayo, Jonathan Webb, Ralph Weikert, Omer Wellber, Lothar Zagrosek, Alberto Zedda; with directors such as Daniele Abbado, Pier'Alli, Roberto Andò, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Robert Carsen, Giancarlo Cobelli, Hugo De Ana, Andrea De Rosa, William Friedkin, Deni Krief, La Fura Dels Baus (Alex Ollè), Davide Livermore, Valter Malosti, Mario Martone, Francesco Micheli, Damiano Michieletto, Eimuntas Nekrosius, Pierluigi Pizzi, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Franco Ripa Di Meana and Maurizio Scaparro.

Particularly interested in contemporary repertoire, Roberto Abbondanza has sung works by S. Barber and L. Bernstein (Arias and Barcarollas), L. Bacalov (Misa Tango), B. Britten (War Requiem, The Rape of Lucrecia, Curlew River), C. Boccadoro (A qualcuno piace tango and Robinson), S. Bussotti (The Rara Requiem and Tieste), L. Dallapiccola (Il Prigioniero and Volo di notte at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino PREMIO ABBIATI 2004), H.W. Henze (Elegy for young lovers PREMIO ABBIATI 2005), G. Ligeti (Le grand Macabre at the Rome Opera), A. Schönberg, G. Sinopoli (Lou Salome at La Fenice), I. Strawinsky (The Flood).

He has also performed numerous world premieres, including works and compositions by C. Ambrosini (Il Killer di parole at La Fenice in Venice), L. Bacalov (Estaba la madre at the Rome Opera, Un Ingenioso Hidalgo in Mexico, Y Borges cuenta que... at the Accademia Chigiana), G. Battistelli, M. D'Amico (Farinelli, la voce perduta and Dannata Epicurea for the Teatro Massimo in Palermo), J. Adams (The death of Klinghoffer), F. Del Corno (Orfeo a fumetti and Non guardate al domani), M. Di Bari (Camera oscura at the Venice Biennial), I. Fedele (Antigone, at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino PREMIO ABBIATI 2007), C. Galante (Combattimento con l'angelo at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo and La Tempesta at the Teatro Carignano in Turin), P. Glass (Songs of Milarepa at the Sagra Musicale Umbra, Nella colonia penale and The Sound of a voice at the Regio di Torino), E. Morricone (Cantata Narrazione for the inauguration of the Basilica of St. Pio of Pietralcina and Canto del Dio nascosto on texts by Karol Woytila), L. Mosca (Signor Goldoni at the Fenice in Venice, Freud, I love you at the Filarmonica Romana and L'Italia del destino at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), M. Panni (Il giudizio di Paride at the Nice Opera), F. Pennisi (Tristan at the Comunale di Bologna), F. Vacchi (Les oiseaux de passage at the Comunale di Bologna and Il letto della storia at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino PREMIO ABBIATI 2003).

His most recent engagements include Silvia Colasanti's La Metamorfosi, Prokofiev's L'amore delle tre melarance and Fabio Vacchi's Lo specchio magico (première) at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Henze's Elegy for young Lovers at La Fenice; Weinberger's Svanda and Die Zauberflöte at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo; Tosca at the Sferisterio in Macerata, Naples, Rome, Turin and Parma; Il barbiere di Siviglia (Bartolo) in Bucharest, Pisa, Jesi, Lucca and Cartagena; Die Zauberflöte, Turandot and Salome in Turin; Les Contes d'Hoffmann in Naples; Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria in Hamburg and the world premiere of Silvia Colasanti's L'ultimo viaggio di Sindbad at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome.

May 2025