Biography

Fabio Luisi serves as General Music Director of the Zurich Opera and Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera. He begins his tenure as Principal Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DNSO) this season.

Highlights of Mr. Luisi’s 2016-17 season with the DNSO include Mahler symphonies and Wagner with Deborah Voigt in Copenhagen and California. This season he concludes his six-year tenure at the Metropolitan Opera with productions of Don Giovanni and Guillaume Tell. At the Zurich Opera, he takes the podium for Lehár’s Das Land des Lächelns, Verdi’s Don Carlo and Un ballo in maschera and Wagner’s Lohengrin, and he leads the Philharmonia Zurich on a German tour with Anne-Sophie Mutter and an interdisciplinary production of Verdi’s Requiem. Rounding out the season are concert appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Filarmonica della Scala, Munich Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, and Opera di Firenze, where he assumes the role of Music Director next spring. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2008.

Mr. Luisi’s previous appointments include chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony (where he was honored with the orchestra’s Golden Bruckner Medal and Ring), general music director of Dresden’s Staatskapelle and Sächsische Staatsoper, artistic director of Leipzig Radio Symphony, music director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, chief conductor of the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Vienna, and artistic director of the Graz Symphony.

Mr. Luisi’s recording of the last two operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen, recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera and released on a Deutsche Grammophon DVD, received a Grammy award for Best Opera Recording of 2012. He is also the recipient of the ECHO Klassik Award and his extensive discography features operas by Verdi, Salieri, and Bellini; symphonies by Honegger, Respighi, and Liszt; works by Franz Schmidt and Richard Strauss; and an award-winning account of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony. In 2015, the Philharmonia Zurich inaugurated its Philharmonia Records label with his accounts of Berlioz, Wagner, and Rigoletto, to which they recently added his recording of the original version of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony.

A native of Genoa, Italy, Mr. Luisi was awarded the Grifo d’Oro for his contributions to the city’s cultural legacy. Off the podium, he is a passionate perfume maker; sales from his one-person operation, flparfums.com, benefit the Luisi Academy for Music and Visual Arts.

(April 2017)