Germany's Nationaltheater Mannheim Names New Music Director

The Italian conductor Roberto Rizzi Brignoli will step into the role

The Nationaltheater Mannheim has named Italian conductor Roberto Rizzi Brignoli as the successor to current Music Director Alexander Soddy. Brignoli will begin in the 2023-24 season.

A native Italian, Brignoli initially studied the piano at Milan's Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory. He began his conducting career as the assistant to Riccardo Muti at the Teatro alla Scala, receiving critical acclaim for his performance of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia in 1998.

He is presently Music Director of the Teatro Municipal de Santiago de Chile and the Santiago Philharmonic Orchestra.

He has conducted in many of the world's leading opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera of New York, Teatro alla Scala of Milan, Rome Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Frankfurt Opera, Semperoper of Dresden, and the Staatsoper of Stuttgart and Hamburg. He is particularly known for his grasp of the Italian and French operatic repertoire.

Previously, Brignoli has made appearances in Mannheim, leading a new production of Verdi's Il Trovatore in the 2019-20 season.