Enrico Calesso

The Treviso-born conductor Enrico Calesso is Permanent Guest Conductor at the Landestheater in Linz (Austria) and Chief Conductor of the Mainfranken Theater Würzburg (Germany). In 2011-12 he collaborated with the Bregenz Festival (Austria), conducting over twenty performances of Giordano’s Andrea Chenier. Previously he was musical director of the Klosterneuburg Opera Festival (Vienna) for three seasons, starting in 2008. Enrico Calesso has conducted orchestras such as the Gewandhaus Orchester in Leipzig, Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestra of the Teatro La Fenice, Orchestra of the Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi di Trieste, Orchestra of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Wiener Symphoniker, Bruckner Orchester Linz, Orchestra of the Austrian Radio of Vienna, Orchestra of the Puccini Festival Torre del Lago, Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento, Berner Symphonie-Orchester, Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, Münchner Symphoniker, Staatskapelle Schwerin, Norddeutsche Philarmonie, Jenaer Philharmonie, Nordwestdeutsche Philarmonie, Würzburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra, Mulhouse Symphony Orchestra, Rzeszow Symphony Orchestra, the Beethoven Philharmonie Vienna, and the Filarmonia Veneta Malipiero.

After making his debut in 2016 for the Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice with the diptych Il Segreto di Susanna / Agenzia Matrimoniale he returned there in 2017 and 2018 for two performances of La Traviata, then in 2019 with a highly acclaimed concert of Pinocchio (P. Valtinoni), and again last February for the world premiere of Le Baruffe (G. Battistelli). Calesso debuted in 2018 at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with great success with La Traviata, and with the same opera in 2019 at the Leipzig Opera, where he returned in the 2021/22 season. After successful productions of Don Giovanni (2017) and Il Trovatore (2020) he was appointed Permanent Guest Conductor at the Landestheater in Linz until 2026, where he subsequently conducted I Capuleti e i Montecchi (2020) and Aida (2022). Calesso’s debut at the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago with Madama Butterfly in 2020 was a great success with audiences and critics alike, and after a return in 2021 with La Bohème, he has appeared summer 2022 with Tosca. With Götterdämmerung in 2019, Calesso opened the first tetralogy of Wagner’s Ring in the history of the Mainfranken Theater in Würzburg. For this he obtained the nomination for Chief Conductor of the Year in the prestigious magazine „Opernwelt“. In 2020 he was again nominated there in the category ‘Performance of the Year’ for his highly acclaimed concert of Rigoletto in Würzburg.

In the 2022-23 season, opera highlights will include La Forza del Destino at the Landestheater in Linz, as well as Lucia di Lammermoor, The Makropulos Case and Elektra (R.Strauss) at the Mainfranken Theater, as well as I Capuleti e i Montecchi by Bellini at the Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste. Among his operatic productions in recent years, Calesso has conducted works such as Tristan and Isolde, Lohengrin, Rheingold, Salome, Ariadne auf Naxos, Wozzeck, The Rake’s Progress, Madama Butterfly, La Bohéme, Tosca, Carmen, Otello, Aida, Macbeth, La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La sonnambula, I Capuelti e i Montecchi, L’Africaine, Les Huguenots, Les Vêpres siciliennes, and Nixon in China, as well as continuing to explore the works of Mozart and Rossini, with various productions of The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, Entführung aus dem Serail, Idomeneo, Die Zauberflöte, Italiana in Algeri, Cenerentola, Barbiere di Siviglia. Calesso is also at home with Baroque music, having conducted rediscoveries such as Alessandro nell’Indie by Galuppi and Ifigenia in Aulide by Cherubini, as well as important titles such as Rinaldo by Händel and Orfeo by Gluck. In the symphonic field, Calesso has conducted the complete cycles of all Brahms symphonies and concertos, and all Beethoven Symphonies and has already begun symphony cycles of Bruckner and Mahler.

In autumn 2022 he will make his debut in the Bruckner Haus Linz with the Bruckner Orchester in a program with music by Martinu and Respighi, as well as his debut with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, and will return to the Norddeutsche Philharmonie with a program entirely dedicated to Brahms. After his concert debut with the Orchestra of the Teatro Lirico of Cagliari in January 2021, he conducted the New Year’s Concert of the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento. In September 2022 he has made his debut with a concert in the symphonic season at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste. Enrico Calesso was trained in Vienna in the class of Uroš Lajovic at the University of Music, earning his diploma with full marks and honors, as well as the honor of the Würdigungspreis of the University of Vienna. Previously he graduated in piano at the „Benedetto Marcello“ Conservatory in Venice under the guidance of Anna Colonna Romano, and graduated in Theoretical Philosophy with full marks and honors at the Ca’ Foscari University with Prof. Emanuele Severino.