Opera Scotland

Guido Ajmone-Marsan Suggest updates

Born Turin, 24 March 1947.

Died London, 19 November 2014.

Italian conductor.

Guido Ajmone-Marsan trained in the USA, at the Eastman School of Music (Rochester, NY) and in Rome at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, under Franco Ferrara. He was the winner of the Rupert Foundation conducting competition (London 1973) and the Georg Solti Prize. His operatic debut in 1976 was at the Spoleto Festival.

He first appeared in opera in the UK with Welsh National, where he conducted La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and La traviata.  Later Welsh connections included a four-year period from 1991 as a conductor with the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. He worked several times with Scottish Opera, first in 1996 on Hansel and Gretel, thereafter always in Puccini. He also appeared with Opera North, ENO (La bohème) and at Covent Garden (Don Pasquale).

In New York he conducted at both the Met (Rigoletto) and New York City Opera (L'heure espagnole, L'enfant et les sortilèges, Turandot, La traviata, La rondine, Madama Butterfly, Carmen, Prince Igor, Don Giovanni, Falstaff and Attila). He also worked with the opera companies in San Francisco (Don Pasquale), Washington DC (Madama Butterfly, La traviata), Copenhagen (Les contes d'Hoffmann), Nantes (Béatrice et Bénédict, Samson et Dalila, Götterdämmerung) and Berlin Deutsche Oper (Tosca, Madama Butterfly).

Appointments include a year as assistant conductor at the LSO. In Germany he was music director of the Essen Opera from 1986 to 1990.