February 7, 2012. Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti, the popular music director of the San Francisco Opera, has been appointed to the same position at the historic Teatro di San Carlo in Naples.
Luisotti, 50, who also is the principal guest conductor of the Tokyo Philharmonic, succeeds English conductor Jeffrey Tate with immediate effect.
The Tuscan-born conductor will take over the historic San Carlo Theater, one of the oldest opera houses in Europe. The theater itself underwent a complete restoration in 2010.
The appointment of a widely-respected conductor like Luisotti is another indication of the general renaissance of Italian opera houses after the success, over the past five years, of Milan’s La Scala in raising the artistic level and expanding the season in the face of dramatic reductions in government subsidies.
A press conference on March 7th will announce details of the appointment. He will be in Naples to conduct Verdi’s “I Masnadieri”
Frank Cadenhead