© Márcia Lessa
Lorenzo Viotti was born in Lausanne into a family of musicians. After studying piano, voice and percussion in Lyon, he trained to be a conductor under Georg Mark in Vienna, while at the same time performing as a percussionist in a variety of different ensembles including the Vienna Philharmonic. He went on to hone his skills in Weimar under the guidance of Nicolas Pasquet. He made his opera debut conducting Le nozze di Figaro at the Schönbrunn Theatre in 2013. That same year, he won the International Conducting Competition in Cadaquès (Spain). Two years later, at the age of 25, he won the highly prestigious Young Conductor Award at the Salzburg Festival. In 2016, he made his debut leading the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Verbier Chamber Orchestra as well as the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival. In 2017, he conducted several concerts at the Salzburg Summer Festival and shared the rostrum with Christian Thielemann for a concert honouring Herbert von Karajan to mark the 50th anniversary of the Easter Festival. He has conducted numerous symphony orchestras including the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Staatskapelle the Orchestre National de France, the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Radio Munich Orchestra, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also been musical director of the Gulbenkian Orchestra since the 2018-2019 season and he was recently appointed as the principal conductor of the Dutch National Opera and the Dutch Philharmonic Orchestra—a role he will assume at the beginning of the 2021-2022 season. Over the last few years, he has conducted La Belle Hélène at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Rossini’s La Cambiale di matrimonio at La Fenice in Vence, Carmen and La Bohème in Klagenfurt, Rigoletto in Stuttgart and Dresden, Donizetti’s Viva la Mamma at the Lyon Opera, Werther in Zurich, Klagenfurt and Frankfurt, Tosca at the New National Theatre in Tokyo and the Frankfurt Opera, and Carmen, first at the Hamburg Staatsoper and then for his debut at the Paris Opera. During the 2019-2020 season, he made his debut at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam with Pagliacci / Cavalleria rusticana and conducted Manon Lescaut in Frankfurt, Roméo et Juliette at Milan’s La Scala, Madame Butterfly in Dresden and La Bohème at the Paris Opera. Lorenzo Viotti received the Newcomers Award at the 2017 International Opera Awards.
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