It’s exactly three years since my last Aida, in a concert performance: an intense experience that brings the conductor face to face with the score which, since it is Verdi, is obviously perfect. 

In the enchanted environment of Olavinlinna castle, suspended in time, on the banks of lake Saimaa, I have the honour of closing the Savonlinna Opera Festival conducting a concert performance of Norma.

My schedules, filled with evenings on the podium and in the orchestra pit, to the delight of a music enthusiast like me, are often unpredictable. So, my presence here at the Royal Ballet and Opera in London has coincided with the twenty-fifth anniversary of a career that began conducting Rigoletto at the Teatro Regio,

The programme I’m about to conduct (23 May 2026) at the Teatro San Carlo is ‘beautiful’ because the Hebrides overture and the Mendelssohn Violin concerto in E minor are beautiful (in the sense too of captivating),