Roberto Abbondanza - Il sagrestano

Born in Rome, he specialized at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and at the Music Academy in Koln with Hartmut Holl. Regular guest in important theatres in Italy and abroad he collaborated with conductors as Zubin Mehta, Bruno Bartoletti, Luis Bacalov, Stefan Soltez, just to name a few; he works regularly with Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante and renowned baroque conductors as Rinaldo Alessandrini, Alan Curtis, Andrea Marcon, Jordi Savall, Alberto Zedda. His opera repertoire include works by Mozart, Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini as well baroque one: in the past seasons Mr. Abbondanza performed masterpieces by Monteverdi , Cavalli, Händel, Scarlatti, Vivaldi and Jommelli .

Leading exponent of the contemporary repertoire, he performed pieces by Barber, Bernstein, Sinopoli, Adams, Bacalov, Britten, Boccadoro, Bussotti, Dallapiccola (Il prigioniero e Volo di notte, Abbiati Prize 2004, Daniele Abbado directing), Donatoni, Henze (Elegy for Young Lovers, Abbiati prize 2005), Ligeti, Maderna, Malipiero, Nono, Pärt, Petrassi, Schoenberg, Stravinskij. Mr. Abbondanza also performed numerous première such as Ambrosini’s Killer di Parole (Abbiati prize 2010), Fedele’s Antigone (Abbiati prize 2007), Mosca’s Signor Goldoni and Vacchi’s Il letto della storia (Abbiati prize 2003). Recent engagements include: Die Zauberflöte and Weinberger’s Svanda Dudak at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo; David and Bathsheba in Stavanger; Colasanti’s Metamorfosi and Britten’s The rape of Lucretia at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Tosca at the Sferisterio Opera Festival in Macerata. Amongst his future plans it is worth mentioning Vacchi’s Lo Specchio Magico at the Opera di Firenze.

Daniele Abbado - director

Daniele Abbado studied at the School of Dramatic Arts of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano and graduated in philosophy. He began his career as a theatre director in 1988, extending progressively his interest in stage dramaturgy, TV direction, multimedia shows and lyric opera productions. His work in opera repertoire include different masterpieces by Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Verdi, Boito, Puccini, Weber, Beethoven, Schumann, Wagner, and at the same time he directed productions of 20th century authors such as Berg, Weill, Ravel, Stravinskij, Honegger, Britten, Dalla Piccola. His production of Il prigioniero and Il volo di notte by Dalla Piccola, produced by Maggio Musicale (Florence) was awarded the Premio Abbiati as best Italian performance in 2004 and in 2012 he received the Premio Oscar della Lirica as Best Director. Daniele Abbado was Artistic Director of Teatro “R. Valli” in Reggio Emilia (2002-2012). After his success of his Debussy production Pelléas et Mélisande at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, Daniele Abbado recently directed Nabucco at the Liceu in Barcelona and Attila for the season opening night at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna.

Plans include : Falstaff and Pelléas et Mélisande at the Teatro Regio in Turin; Trovatore at the Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna; revivals ofNabucco in London and revivals of Attila at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

Luca Scarzella - video designer

Luca Scarzella graduated in Philosophy. He regularly worked with prestigious theaters and opera houses in Italy, Europe, Unites States, Australia and Japan. In 1993 he started a collaboration with Daniele Abbado (Tosca in Turin and Osaka, Der Freischütz and Tannhäuser in Rome, Laborinthus II in Genoa, The Rape of Lucretia in Genoa, Florence, Reggio Emilia, Sevilla and Madrid, Lohengrin in Bologna and Bilbao, Volo di notte in Florence, Jr. Butterfly in Tokio, Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni in Verona, Reggio Emilia, Thessaloniki and Saint Paul-USA, Oberon in Toulouse, Nabucco at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and Royal Opera House in London). Further in opera he has worked with Denis Krief, Egisto Marcucci, Franco Ripa di Meana, Francesco Micheli and Damiano Michieletto and conductors such as Carlo Maria Giulini, Claudio Abbado, Myung-Wung Chung and Jeffrey Tate.

He created the videos for Der Fliegende Holländer produced by As.Li.Co with the director Federico Grazzini, with whom in 2014 he created the video for Turandot staged at the Opéra de Nice. For the opening concert season at Teatro Massimo di Palermo and together with Roberto Andò he created the video event for the new commission Il quadro nero (by Marco Betta). He designed multimedia exhibitions and installations for the Museum of Teatro alla Scala, la Triennale and Museo del '900 in Milan, la Biennale Musica in Venice, Résau Varèse and l’Ircam in Paris. As advisor of Studio Arco and Scape-Architettura he won the International Design Competition for MEIS (Museo dell'Ebraismo Italiano e della Shoa) in Ferrara, where he will be director of its multimedia project. In 2010 he took part at the 5° Rome International Film Festival with his documentary film Inge Film, a portrait of the international publisher Inge Feltrinelli. Mr. Scarzella recently worked at the new production of Tosca in collaboration with the director Lukas Hemleb at the Opernhaus in Kiel. Plans include revival of Falstaff at the Teatro Regio in Turin and of Nabucco at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London.