Sebastiano Rolli began his musical studies at a very young age with his father, a choir director, at the A. Boito Conservatory in Parma and the G. Verdi Conservatory in Milan. Alongside his studies in composition and vocal chamber music, he pursued research into the performance practice of the nineteenth-century Italian repertoire.

He has taught interpretation at the Mythos courses of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Arturo Toscanini Foundation in Parma; he has supervised theses on the philological approach to Verdi’s melodrama, with works dedicated to Simon Boccanegra and Otello. Over the past year, he has been invited by the Dall’Abaco Conservatory in Verona, where he gave a masterclass on the interpretation of nineteenth-century Italian melodrama; by the National Institute for Donizetti Studies to publish an essay in the journal Donizetti Studies (Il Saggiatore) on musical performance practice in Donizetti’s operas; and by the National Institute for Verdi Studies, where he spoke on issues related to score interpretation at a conference devoted to staging Verdi’s melodrama. He is the only orchestral conductor on the faculty of the Verdi Academy of the Teatro Regio in Parma; since this year he has been an Academic Fellow at the University of Southampton.

His studies in musical dramaturgy with Marcello Conati led him to explore in depth the themes and techniques of the historicist approach to nineteenth-century Italian melodrama. Marcello Conati and Pierluigi Petrobelli guided him toward a career as a conductor, which has taken him to the most important international stages, allowing him today to be counted among the most authoritative names in the stylistic interpretation of classical and Romantic melodrama (in 2021 he was featured at the Cartagena International Music Festival, conducting four concerts dedicated to Italian melodrama from the 17th to the 20th century as a reference interpreter of the repertoire). Focusing on philological and historicist approaches, he has conducted and recorded the critical editions in their world premiere of Torquato Tasso, Maria de Rudenz, Rosmonda d’Inghilterra, and Giovedì grasso by Donizetti (DVD Bongiovanni and Dynamic); La straniera by Bellini (DVD Bongiovanni); and I lombardi alla prima crociata by Verdi (bringing the work back to La Fenice in Venice for the first time since 1844, when it was conducted by Verdi himself).

He has conducted at the Donizetti Festival in Bergamo (Maria Stuarda, Torquato Tasso, Il trovatore, Maria de Rudenz, Rosmonda d’Inghilterra); at the Bellini Festival in Catania (La sonnambula, La straniera); at the Verdi Festival in Parma La traviata, Il trovatore, and he brought back Falstaff to the Teatro di Busseto in 2013, the bicentenary of the composer’s birth, with the Accademia della Scala and Renato Bruson in the title role, using the sets and costumes employed by Arturo Toscanini in 1913. At the Verdi Festival he also conducted two commemorative concerts in 2022 and 2024. At the Teatro Regio in Parma he conducted Lucia di Lammermoor and Roberto Devereux, and in 2019 reopened the opera season with the historic production of Ballo in maschera by Verdi used in 1913 by Cleofonte Campanini. At the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino he conducted La sonnambula by Vincenzo Bellini, La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, Rosmonda d’Inghilterra by Gaetano Donizetti, Il barbiere di Siviglia and L’italiana in Algeri by Gioachino Rossini on tour in Muscat, Oman. At the Teatro La Fenice in Venice he conducted I lombardi alla prima crociata, I due Foscari and Attila by Verdi. He has conducted at the Teatro Nacional de Lima La traviata and a recital with Juan Diego Flórez, with whom he has also performed four other concerts in Mexico City, Dublin, Granada and Bratislava. He has conducted Nabucco at the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv; Il barbiere di Siviglia and Don Pasquale at the Nouvelle Opéra Fribourg and the Opéra de Nancy; Macbeth at the Opéra National de Dijon and at the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava, where he also conducted I puritani; at the Teatro Nacional de Tenerife he conducted Anna Bolena and Norma; he inaugurated for four consecutive years the Petr Dvořák Festival in Jaroměřice with the Czech National Orchestra and the Moravian National Orchestra; he conducted Don Carlo at the Sofia Opera; he conducted L’elisir d’amore at the Magdeburg Theater, where he is currently conducting I Capuleti e i Montecchi also in Brescia, Como, Reggio Emilia, Cremona and Pavia. At the Arena di Verona Foundation he conducted Maria Stuarda by Donizetti and La cenerentola by Rossini, as well as two symphonic concerts; at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari La vedova allegra by Franz Lehár, I quattro pezzi sacri by Verdi and the Requiem by Fauré; at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa Lucia di Lammermoor and a recital with Mariella Devia; at the theatres of Rovigo and Treviso Rigoletto; at the Teatro delle Muse in Ancona Il giovedì grasso by Donizetti (modern world premiere in critical edition); at the Fondazione Teatri delle Marche Il trovatore; at the Palazzo della Pilotta in Parma Aida; at the National Theatre of Tirana Il trittico by Puccini, Il trovatore and the Requiem by Fauré; at the Teatro De Carolis in Sassari I Pagliacci by Leoncavallo, recorded for Sky Classica TV; at the Teatro di Lecco Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni. In the Sala Verdi of the Milan Conservatory he performed Die sieben Todsünden by Kurt Weill. He has conducted Verdi’s Messa da requiem and Rossini’s Petite Messe solennelle for the seventh and tenth anniversaries of the death of Maestro Romano Gandolfi in Parma.

He inaugurated the Maria Callas National Theatre in Athens conducting a symphonic vocal concert, after having conducted a concert dedicated to Gioachino Rossini in collaboration with the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro.

Among his engagements for the 2025-26 season are: L’elisir d’amore in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto; Giovanna d’Arco at the Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka; Petite Messe solennelle at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona; and Nabucco at the Arena di Verona.

He was music director of the UNIMI Orchestra in Milan, with which he explored the classical, Romantic and contemporary repertoire. In addition to performances of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Fauré, Puccini, R. Strauss and Weill, he has conducted world premieres by Maderna, Bettinelli and Parisi.

He has published two critical essays on the interpretations of Giuseppe Di Stefano (Azzali editori) and on the figure of Giuseppe Verdi (Azzali editori); his contributions appear in various collected volumes, including one dedicated to Cleofonte Campanini on the centenary of his death, retracing the interpretative trajectory of one of the greatest conductors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Short essays have appeared in program notes for national and international opera seasons. He regularly collaborates with the cultural pages of the Gazzetta di Parma.

March 2026