Orchestra Teatro Regio Torino

The Orchestra of the Teatro Regio Torino is the heir to the ensemble founded at the end of the nineteenth century by Arturo Toscanini, under whose direction countless concerts and many historic operatic productions were performed. In particular, the Orchestra gave the Italian premieres of Götterdämmerung by Wagner and Salome by Strauss, as well as the world premieres of Manon Lescaut and La bohème by Puccini.

Throughout its long history, it has shown remarkable versatility in tackling both the great repertoire and many works of the twentieth century, including world premieres such as Gargantua by Corghi and Leggenda by Solbiati. It has also accompanied major ballet companies such as the Bolshoi of Moscow and the Mariinsky of St. Petersburg.

The Orchestra has performed with the most celebrated soloists, and the ensemble has been led by internationally renowned conductors such as Roberto Abbado, Ashkenazy, Bartoletti, Bychkov, Campanella, Dantone, Gelmetti, Gergiev, Hogwood, Luisi, Luisotti, Mariotti, Oren, Pidò, Sado, Steinberg, Tate, and Gianandrea Noseda, who served as Music Director of the Teatro Regio from 2007 to 2018. The role is now held, as of January 2025, by Andrea Battistoni.

The Orchestra has received numerous invitations to festivals and theatres around the world; in recent years, always under the direction of Maestro Noseda, it has been a guest in Germany, Spain, Austria, France, and Switzerland. In the summer of 2010 it undertook a triumphant tour of Japan and China with La traviata and La bohème, a success widely repeated in 2013 with the “Regio Japan Tour.” In 2014, following tours to St. Petersburg and Edinburgh, the first tour of the United States and Canada took place in December. There were three major international engagements in 2016: the artistic ensembles of the Teatro were guests of honour at the 44th Hong Kong Arts Festival, then in Paris and Essen, and finally at the historic Savonlinna Opera Festival. In 2017, after stops in Geneva and Lugano, the Orchestra performed in a concert in Buenos Aires, and the Regio was a guest for the second time at the Edinburgh Festival with four performances of La bohème, three of Macbeth (later presented in concert form in Paris), and Verdi’s Requiem; the first tour of the Middle East also took place, with three performances of Aida at the Royal Opera House in Muscat, Oman. In 2018, the Teatro’s ensembles opened the Septembre Musical festival in Montreux-Vevey and were guests of the Sagra Musicale Malatestiana in Rimini with a programme of symphonies and choruses from operas by Verdi and Wagner. In August 2019, the Regio met with enthusiastic acclaim with two performances of La traviata staged by Henning Brockhaus and Josef Svoboda at the historic Ljubljana Festival in Slovenia, conducted by Donato Renzetti. In October 2025, the Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Andrea Battistoni will be guests at the Auditorium of the Orchestre National de Lyon.

The Orchestra and Chorus of the Regio are engaged in an intense recording activity, within which several video productions of particular interest stand out: Medea, Edgar, Thaïs, Adriana Lecouvreur, Boris Godunov, Un ballo in maschera, I Vespri siciliani, Leggenda, Don Carlo, Faust, Aida, La bohème, L’incoronazione di Dario, Turandot, La donna serpente, I Lombardi alla prima crociata, Agnese, a valuable rediscovery from the output of Ferdinando Paer, and Violanta by Korngold. Among the most recent recordings, all conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, are Mahler’s Second Symphony (Fonè), the CD Fiamma del Belcanto with Diana Damrau (Warner Classics/Erato), reviewed by The New York Times as one of the 25 best classical music recordings of 2015, two Verdi CDs with Rolando Villazón and Anna Netrebko, and a Mozart CD with Ildebrando D’Arcangelo (Deutsche Grammophon); Chandos has released Quattro pezzi sacri by Verdi and, within the “Musica Italiana” series, two albums devoted to symphonic-choral works by Petrassi. Finally, in 2022 Dynamic released Mozart’s Requiem conducted by Stefano Montanari.

Orchestra Roster

° Principal players

Orchestra Manager
Mauro Ponzio