Oleg Caetani, one of the greatest conductors of his generation, moves freely between symphonic and opera repertoire. Caetani has conducted all over the world including: La Scala in Milan,
the Mariinsky in Saint Petersburg, the Royal Opera House in London, the Opera House in San Francisco, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Lincoln Center in New York, the Suntory Hall in Japan,
the Sydney Opera House, the Accademia of Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Munich Philharmonic, the Mozarteum Orchester in Salzburg, the Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra of Russia, the Yomiuri Orchestra in Tokyo, the Sydney Symphony, and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with the greatest soloists in our day including: Marta Argerich, Sviatoslav Richter, Danil Trifonov, Vadim Repin, Misha Maiisky, Gautier Capucon, Viktoria Mullova and Emmanuele Pahud. Caetani considers Nadia Boulanger to be the driving inspiration of his career. She discovered his talent, initiated him into music, and gave him the philosophical approach to life linked to Montaigne, that he still has today. At the Rome Conservatory of Santa Cecilia, he attended Franco Ferrara’s conducting class and studied composition with Irma Ravinale. At the age of 17, he made his theatre debut with a production of Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and other madrigals that he arranged himself.
After studying all the Shostakovich Symphonies with Kiril Kondrashin at the Moscow Conservatory, he graduated with Ilya Mussin from the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Winner of the RAI Turin competition and Karajan Competition in Berlin, he started his career at the Berlin State Opera “Unter den Linden” as repetiteur and assistant of Otmar Suitner. Caetani’s vast experience, of almost forty years now, in the opera repertoire of Verdi, Puccini, Mussorgsky and Wagner (including several Ring productions) has influenced his approach to the great operatic and symphonic works of the twentieth century. Oleg was chief designate at the ENO in 2005, chief designate 2002-2005 for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Music Conductor and Artistic Director for the same orchestra from 2005 to 2009. Before that, Caetani was the Principal Conductor for the Staatskapelle Weimar, First Kapellmeister of the Frankfurt Opera and GMD in Wiesbaden and in Chemnitz.
Since 1999, Caetani has had a particularly close relationship with laVerdi Orchestra and with them has toured South America (2003), Spain (2009), as well as three concerts in Salzburg (Schumann Symphonic Cycle) in February 2016. In April 2008, he conducted the Verdi Orchestra in a concert presented by the Italian President to Pope Benedetto XVI in the Vatican, which was recorded live for Eurovision TV. Shostakovich’s music plays a central role in his repertoire. Caetani translated the libretto of “The Nose“ from Russian into German for his production in Frankfurt in 1991; he conducted the Italian premiere of the operetta “Moscow Cheriomushki” in 2007, and has conducted the first performances in many different countries of Shostakovich’s operas, concertos, ballets and suites, as well as having recorded the first Italian complete cycle of Shostakovich symphonies with the LaVerdi Orchestra in Milan. The CDs have won several prizes: 10/10 from Classical Today in the USA, ffff Télérama in France and Record Geijutsu in Japan. His recordings of Tansman’s Symphonies, released by Chandos, won three Diapason d’Or in 2006 and 2008; his Gounod’s Symphonies for CPO (including the 3rd Symphony discovered by Caetani) also won a Diapason D’or in January 2015.
In 2001, he made his debut at La Scala in Milan with “Turandot”, returning there in 2005 to conduct “Otello”. He opened the 2001 season of the Theatre of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with “Don Pasquale”. Recent engagements have included: “Khovanchina”, Vaughan Williams’s “Sir John In Love”, “Madama Butterfly”, “La Bohème” and “Tosca”, all at the English National Opera, “The Flying Dutchman” at the Rome Opera House, “L’enfant et les sortilèges” at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, “La Voix Humaine” coupled with “The Bluebeard Castle”, “Don Carlos” in Köln, “Madama Butterfly” in Berlin and Oslo, his debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden with “Tosca”, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” at the Oslo Opera, “Tosca” at the Sao Paolo Opera House, “Tosca” and “Turandot” at the Mariinsky Opera House, “The Prisoner” by Dallapiccola with the Mariinsky Orchestra during the Stars White Nights Festival, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” in Helsinki, “Les Pecheurs des Perles”, “Così fan tutte” and “Carmen” in Trieste and “Otello” in Weimar.
He regularly conducts orchestras such as: the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Munich Philharmonic, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Gewandhausorchester, the Wiener
Symphoniker (with which he recorded “Poliuto” by Donizetti for Emi-Cbs), the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Orchestre National de Radio France, the Mozarteum Orchester, the Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin, the RAI National Symphonic Orchestra, the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orchestra of the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Montecarlo, the Svetlanov Symphony Orchestra, the Spanish National Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Tokyo Symphony Orchestra,
the Sydney Symphony, the Yomiuri Orchestra, the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, the Berner Symphonieorchester, the Orchestre Philharmonique de
Strasbourg, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, the Qatar Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra for a Festival Tchaikovsky/Caetani 2016, and others.
The next engagements will see him conducting Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci in Catania, The Magic Flute at the Tokyo National Opera, and concerts with LaVerdi Orchestra, the Chamber
Orchestra of Padua and Veneto, the Wuerth Philharmonic, a documentary about Shostakovich 14 Symphony and various recording projects etc.
