Giancarlo del Monaco, son of the celebrated tenor Mario del Monaco, was born in 1943 in Villorba, near Venice. He studied piano and trumpet before graduating from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland).
His directorial debut came in 1965 with the opera Samson et Dalila at the Greek Theatre in Syracuse, featuring his father in the title role. From 1966 to 1968 Giancarlo del Monaco honed his craft as an assistant director, collaborating with luminaries such as Günther Rennert, Wieland Wagner and Walter Felsenstein. During 1970–1973 he served as assistant to Rudolf Gamsjäger, Intendant of the Wiener Staatsoper.
Was Principal Stage Director at the Theater Ulm from 1973 to 1976. In 1975 alongside his father Giancarlo del Monaco co-founded the Opera Festival in Montepulciano, later assuming the role of Artistic Director. He then worked as Intendant of the Staatstheater Kassel from 1980 to 1982. Del Monaco’s distinguished career has also seen him lead the Macerata Opera Festival (1986–1988), the Oper Bonn (1992–1997) and the Opéra de Nice (1997–2001). From 2009 to 2011 he served as Artistic Director of the Tenerife Opera Festival in Spain.
His extensive portfolio includes over a hundred opera productions at the world’s most prestigious opera houses, with engagements in Paris, Milan, Rome, Turin, Naples, Bologna, Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Vienna, Zurich, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Buenos Aires, Sydney and Beijing.
He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1991 with La fanciulla del West and has subsequently directed Stiffelio, Madama Butterfly, Simon Boccanegra and La forza del destino at the Met. All these productions have been recorded by Deutsche Grammophon.
In 1996 Giancarlo del Monaco directed Verdi’s Otello at the Mariinsky Theatre, drawing inspiration from his own production created for the Oper Bonn in 1992.
In 2024 he staged Rigoletto at the Bolshoi Theatre of Russia.
Throughout his career del Monaco has collaborated with a host of eminent conductors, among them Marc Albrecht, Christian Badea, Serge Baudo, Silvio Varviso, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Dennis Russell Davies, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Jiří Kout, Gustav Kuhn, James Levine, Lucas Macías Navarro, Woldemar Nelsson, Daniel Oren, Marcello Panni, Giuseppe Patanè, Georges Prêtre, Nello Santi, Michel Sasson, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Leonard Slatkin, Gabriele Ferro, Riccardo Chailly and David Epstein.
Recipient of numerous accolades, including the Golden Viotti Prize (1967), the Luigi Illica International Prize (1998), the Crystal Eagle Prize (Nice, 2001) and the Teatro Campoamor Opera Prize (Oviedo, Spain, 2007). Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (1993), recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, 1st Class (1987) and the National Order of the Southern Cross (Brazil, 1995), Chevalier of France’s Order of Arts and Letters (1995) and Legion of Honour (2015). He holds an honorary doctorate from Palm Beach State College (USA, 1995) and is an honorary citizen of Montpellier, France (2001).
Information for January 2025
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