Roberto Gianola
Guest Conductor
Roberto Gianola enjoys a distinguished international career, having conducted orchestras across Europe, the United States, Central and South America, Russia, Turkey, Egypt, China, Korea, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates. Since May 2023, he has been Principal Conductor of the İzmir State Opera and Ballet, following nine years as Music Director of the Istanbul State Opera, where he covered an extensive operatic, symphonic, and ballet repertoire.
His career has taken him to many of the world’s most prestigious stages, including the Musikverein in Vienna, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Seoul Arts Center, Smetana Hall in Prague, Sala Verdi in Milan, and theatres in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Macau.
In Italy, he has collaborated with numerous operatic and symphonic institutions, among them the Fondazione Arena di Verona, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Teatro Verdi di Trieste, Teatro Regio di Parma, Teatro del Giglio di Lucca, Teatro Coccia di Novara, Teatro Verdi di Sassari, Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali di Milano, Orchestra Regionale della Toscana, Virtuosi del Teatro alla Scala, Cameristi del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, the Orchestra of the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, and the Sanremo Symphony Orchestra. His repertoire ranges from Italian opera to ballet, symphonic, and contemporary music.
Recent engagements include I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Il Trovatore, The Nutcracker, and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet in Ljubljana; Don Pasquale and Lucrezia Borgia in Trieste and Novara; Manon Lescaut in Lucca; L’elisir d’amore in Cagliari; Cavalleria Rusticana in Livorno; Aida and Turandot in Skopje; Falstaff, Norma, Don Quixote, and The Sleeping Beauty in Istanbul; La Bohème and Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette in Hong Kong; Il Barbiere di Siviglia in Sassari; Nabucco at the Fuerteventura Opera; La Traviata, La Bohème, and Attila in İzmir; Otello in Maribor, Ljubljana, and Zagreb; and Tosca at the Seongnam Arts Center in Seoul.
Upcoming engagements include his debut at the Teatro Bellini in Catania in 2026 with The Merry Widow, a return to Hong Kong Opera with Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, and Tosca at the İzmir Opera and the Mediterranean Festival of Ephesus.
Gianola is also founder and Artistic Director of the Lake Como Philharmonic Orchestra and the Lake Como Music Academy, which for over twenty years have promoted music through productions, masterclasses, and international competitions. Notable was his 2024 tour of 27 concerts across China. His discography includes a Stradivarius CD with Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali di Milano and a Respighi CD with the Sanremo Symphony Orchestra, published by Amadeus.