FRANCESCO ANGELICO has been General Music Director of the Hessisches Staatstheater Kassel since the 2017/18 season. In November 2019, he extended his contract until 2025. During Angelico’s initial term, he presented with great acclaim Richard Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen under the direction of Markus Dietz, which concluded with Götterdämmerung in March 2020.
In the current season, Francesco Angelico conducts Alban Berg's Wozzeck in a production by the new artistic director Florian Lutz, Giacomo Puccini's Tosca and the world premiere of Felix Leuschner's Blitze sprechen Deutsch, a commission from the Staatstheater Kassel as well as symphony concerts.
Francesco Angelico regularly conducts at leading opera houses worldwide. In 2020/21 he returned to the Bavarian State Opera in Munich with Gaetano Donizetti's Liebestrank and conducted Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly at the Opera Graz – due to the pandemic only until the dress rehearsal. In April 2022, he will make his debut at Gothenburg Opera with a new production of Guiseppe Verdi's Rigoletto.
After completing his cello studies in 2001 at the Conservatory in Modena, Francesco Angelico began his conducting studies in 2003 under Giorgio Bernasconi at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, which he successfully completed in 2006. During this time, he was assistant to Bernasconi within the frame of a concert series for contemporary music entitled 900 Passato e presente, presented by the Swiss public broadcasting organisation in Lugano. Contemporary music continues to hold a place of particular significance within Francesco Angelico’s symphonic repertoire.
From 2013 to 2017, Francesco Angelico was Principal Conductor of the Tiroler Symphonieorchester-Innsbruck, and also of the Tiroler Landestheater (Innsbruck) from 2015 until 2017. He received the Österreichischer Musiktheaterpreis (Austrian Musical Theater Prize) for his production of Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur in 2016.
In 2011, Francesco Angelico was awarded the Deutscher Dirigentenpreis (German Conducting Prize).
Francesco Angelico was born in 1977 in Caltagirone, Sicily.
Photo: Giancarlo Pradelli