Opera Scotland

Alberto Zedda Suggest updates

Born Milan, 1928.

Italian conductor, editor and musicologist.

 

Zedda became one of the leading authorities on the music of Rossini, spending much of his career studying the composer and preparing new critical editions for publication. His revised version of Il barbiere di Siviglia was published in 1969, rapidly becoming the standard text for performance and recording. He first came to the attention of British audiences when his edition of La cenerentola was introduced to the 1971 Edinburgh Festival, in a production with Teresa Berganza conducted by Claudio Abbado, which sounded much lighter in tone, and radically different from the familiar version. The recording made during that Festival is still highly competitive.

He studied with Carlo Maria Giulini. and made his first appearance conducting Il barbiere di Siviglia in 1956.  His conducting career has taken him to La Scala Milan, the Paris Opéra and Vienna State Opera. He made his debut at Covent Garden in 1975, also with Il barbiere di Siviglia. He worked regularly with the New York City Opera and the Deutsche Oper, Berlin. His major long-term conducting post has been as director of the Rossini Festival held annually at his birthplace, Pesaro, which has seen the revival of many operas which had been unheard since the composer's lifetime.

He has taught throughout his career, early on in Cincinnati, and more recently at the Accademia Rossiniana and in Valencia. He has conducted recordings of a significant number of Rossini's operas, as well as works by other bel canto era composers.