Donato Renzetti, the conductor who hails from the hills

He was born in Torino di Sangro on January 30, 1950, into a family of local musicians and singers. This is a fact worth noting: in Italy, between the 1950s and 1960s, towns like Torino di Sangro had a very strong town band—about sixty people who, as the elders say, “made their living from the band.” Music was a serious profession, not just a pastime for patron saint festivals.

Donato Renzetti grew up within that band. He studied composition with Bruno Bettinelli and orchestral conducting at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. To pay for his studies, he played percussion and became very skilled: he was hired as a timpanist for the orchestra of La Scala, under the direction of Claudio Abbado.

The Path of Awards

Renzetti’s career did not begin with a stroke of luck, but with a series of international competitions won one after another between the ages of 26 and 30:

• 1976 — Respighi Prize, Accademia Chigiana in Siena
• 1978 — Bronze medal at the Ernest Ansermet Competition in Geneva
• 1980 — Guido Cantelli International Prize, won in Novara: it is the world’s most rigorous conducting competition for young conductors. The door that, over time, opened the careers of Riccardo Muti, Daniele Gatti, and Antonio Pappano. That 1980 edition was also the prize’s last historic iteration before its revival decades later

The world’s great opera houses

From that moment on, Renzetti was invited to the most important opera houses on the planet:

• Teatro alla Scala · Milan
• Royal Opera House Covent Garden · London
• Opéra national de Paris
• Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall · New York
• Vienna State Opera · Vienna
• Bavarian State Opera · Munich
• Liceu · Barcelona
• NHK Symphony and Tokyo Philharmonic · Tokyo

Resident Conductor

Guest conducting is one thing; holding a permanent musical directorship is another. Renzetti has done both:

• 1982–1987 — Principal Conductor of the Orchestra Internazionale d’Italia
• 1987–1992 — Principal Conductor of the Orchestra Regionale Toscana
• 1993–2001 — Principal Conductor of the Bergamo State Orchestra
• 2022– — Music Director of the Macerata Opera Festival, an opera festival founded in 1921 at the Sferisterio in the Marche region

Lifetime Achievement Awards and Honors

• 19th Italian Record Critics’ Award for the recording of Schumann’s Manfred with the orchestra and chorus of La Scala
• 2002 — Frentano d’Oro Award from the Collegio dei Ragionieri di Lanciano, for artistic achievements in Italy and abroad
• 2006 — Rossini d'Oro Award from the Associazione Amici della Lirica of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro
• 2009 — 26th Luigi Illica Award and Carloni dei Barattelli Award from L’Aquila
• 2016 — Career Award at the Taormina Opera Stars
• Honorary citizenship of Tesori d'Abruzzo for those who represent the region around the world

His other career: teaching

Since 1987, Renzetti has taught conducting at the Accademia Musicale Pescarese. It is a detail that often takes a back seat in international biographies, but one that matters in Torino di Sangro: Renzetti has maintained, close to home—less than an hour’s drive from his hometown—an observatory on the new generation of Italian conductors.

Names such as Gianandrea Noseda—now music director of the Washington National Symphony Orchestra—and Michele Mariotti, principal conductor of the Rome Opera, have passed through the classrooms of the Pescarese. Renzetti saw them arrive as young men and helped shape them. Since 2014, he has also been director of the Donato Renzetti Conducting Academy, the Italian Academy of Orchestral Conducting that bears his name.

Discography (selection)

He has recorded for Philips, Frequenz, Fonit Cetra, Nuova Era, and Dynamic:

• Manfred by Robert Schumann · Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala — winner of the 19th Record Critics’ Award
• Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Simone Mayr in repertoire recordings
• Rare and unpublished overtures by Schubert and Cherubini
• Opera: Attila, Il Signor Bruschino, La Cambiale di Matrimonio, La Favorite
• DVD: La Fille du Régiment at La Scala · La Cenerentola at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera · La Gioconda at the Arena di Verona · L'Italiana in Algeri at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro

“The world of classical music is old and obtuse,” Renzetti said in an interview with Quotidiano Nazionale in 2023. “We must have the courage to look forward, not backward.”

A Homage to His Hometown

Donato Renzetti often returns to Torino di Sangro—for his family, for occasions when the town invites him. In an interview with the website tesoridabruzzo.com, he said: “When a place is in your heart, you carry it with you wherever you go. I take Torino di Sangro to Milan, to London, to New York. It’s always with me.”

Sources

• Wikipedia (en) · Donato Renzetti
• donatorenzetti.com · Official biography
• Opéra national de Paris · Artist profile
• Wikipedia · Guido Cantelli Prize (history of the competition, 1980 edition)
• Treasures of Abruzzo · When a Land Is in the Heart
• Quotidiano Nazionale · Interview 2023
• Macerata Opera Festival · Musical Director
• donatorenzetti.com · Complete discography