Francesco Lanzillotta is Music Director of the Macerata Opera Festival from 2017. Born in Rome, after graduating with honors at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome in orchestra conducting with Bruno Aprea and in composition with Luciano Pelosi, he specialized in conducting at the Bard College in New York with Harold Farberman, and in Madrid with George Pehlivanian. From 2014 to 2017 he was Principal Conductor of the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini. Previously, from 2010 to 2014, he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Varna Opera Theater in Bulgaria, where he has conducted Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, Le Nozze di Figaro, La Bohème, Tosca, La Traviata and Carmen. He has conducted in the most prestigious Italian and foreign theaters and is a regular guest of important national and international orchestras, including the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, the Orchestra Haydn, the Orchestra Regionale della Toscana, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, I Pomeriggi Musicali, the Orchestra del Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, the Orchestra of Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, of Teatro Verdi in Trieste, the Gyeonggi Philharmonic Orchestra in Suwon (South Korea) and the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra. Some of the productions he has conducted include Rota’s I Due Timidi / La Notte di un Nevrastenico at the Teatro Verdi in Sassari, Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) by Weill at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples and on tour in Italy, Stravinsky’s Histoire du Soldat, Spontini’s La Fuga in Maschera and De Giosa’s Don Checco at the Teatro San Carlo, Cimarosa’s Il Maestro di Cappella at the Opéra National de Lorraine in Nancy and Britten’s The Little Sweep, which marked in 2013 Lanzillotta’s debut at the Macerata Opera Festival, where he later conducted  Rigoletto for the 2015 festival opening. In 2016-2017 he achieved great success with his debut on the podium of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, at the Opéra national in Montpellier with Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Rota’s La Notte di un Nevrastenico, at the Essen Opera with L’Elisir d’Amore, in Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux with Mariella Devia at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova and as a concert version in Moscow, in Bellini’s Norma in Tokyo, at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro with Torvaldo and Dorliska and at the Budapest Opera with L’Italiana in Algeri. Lanzillotta dedicates himself intensely to the twentieth century music and the contemporary opera: he conducted Giorgio Battistelli’s Il medico dei pazzi in Nancy and in Venice, where he was also on the podium for Poulenc’s La Voix humaineand for Janàček’s Zápisník zmizelého (The Diary of One Who Disappeared). He has also conducted numerous contemporary pages by composers as Matteo D’Amico, Marcello Panni, Ennio Morricone, Ada Gentile, Luciano Pelosi, Carlo Galante, Michele Dall’Ongaro, Francesco Pennisi, Luis Bacalov and Luca Mosca.

Recent engagements include: Lucia di Lammermoor at the Opéra de Toulon, Nabucco at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, La Bohème at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Rigoletto at the Semperoper Dresden, L’Elisir d’Amore at the Sferisterio in Macerata, La Traviata at the Frankfurt Opera, West Side Story at the Maggio Musicale in Florence, Macbeth at the Zurich Opera House, Battistelli’s 7 minuti at the Opéra de Nancy, La Favorite at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, La Traviata in Venice, Le Nozze di Figaro at the Bolshoi in Moscow, Carmen in Macerata, and a new production of Il Viaggio a Reims at the Semperoper Dresden, Le Nozze di Figaro at the NCPA in Beijing, Alfano’s Risurrezione in Florence and Il Viaggio a Reims in Valencia.