Big Ben Phonogram

Sir Antonio Pappano
Conductor and Pianist

Recording on Big Ben

A portrait of Inga Nielsen

571-004-2

Artist Biography

Antonio Pappano (born 30 December 1959) is a British conductor and pianist of Italian parentage currently serving as music director at the Royal Opera House in London, and l'Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

A pianist as well as a conductor, he attracted the attention of fellow pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, whose assistant he became at the Bayreuth Festival.[2] He worked in Barcelona and Frankfurt, and served as an assistant to Michael Gielen.[3] In 1990 he was made musical director of the Den Norske Opera after his conducting debut there in 1987. His role as Sjefdirigent has been taken by Olaf Henzold.

In 1992, at the age of 32, Pappano became music director of La Monnaie, the Belgian Royal Opera House, a post he held until 2002, but meanwhile in 1999, he was appointed to his current position as music director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden that began with the September 2002 season. His current contract at Covent Garden is through 2012.[4] He has also been principal guest conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also conducted at the English National Opera (ENO), the Metropolitan Opera (1997) the San Francisco Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Berlin Staatsoper.

Recently he has been working his way through the Ring Cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner, with stars that have included Plácido Domingo, but, with the Covent Garden orchestra and chorus, he has also conducted a new David McVicar staging of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro from the harpsichord to widespread acclaim. His reputation as accessible yet charismatic and as someone who can work with even the most demanding prima donnas is helping him to build a formidable reputation in London and the opera world.

In 2005, Antonio Pappano became music director of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and regularly conducts the London Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

He was awarded 'Artist of the Year 2000' by Gramophone, the 2003 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera and the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award 2004. In May 2012 Antonio Pappano was made a Cavaliere di Gran Croce by of the Republic of Italy. He was recently awarded the Bruno Walter prize by the Académie du Disque Lyrique in Paris. In recent seasons at the Royal Opera House, Antonio Pappano has conducted the complete Ring cycle, the world premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur, and new productions of Tristan & Isolde and Lulu. This season includes new productions of Il Trittico and Die Meistersinger. In future seasons, he will make his operatic debut at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan (Les Troyens) and conduct Parsifal, The Trojans and Les Vêpres Siciliennes at Covent Garden. In January 2012 Antonio Pappano received a Knighthood for his services to music.