Riccardo Frizza is artistic and musical director of the Donizetti Opera festival in Bergamo, as well as principal conductor of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir.
Born in Brescia, he trained at the Milan Conservatory and the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. He is one of the leading conductors of his generation and regularly works with the world’s most important theatres.
Despite being one of the most sought-after opera conductors, he is also passionate about the symphonic repertoire, as evidenced by his busy schedule. In this capacity, he has conducted the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Sächsische Staatskapelle in Dresden, the Milan Symphony Orchestra, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Tonkünstler Orchestra, the Euskadiko Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Haydn Orchestra and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.
Since March 2022, he has been Principal Conductor of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir, whose repertoire he is enriching with masterpieces by Richard Strauss and Mahler, as well as Italian symphonies by Martucci and Respighi. He has begun an intense collaboration with these historic ensembles in Budapest, on tour and in the recording studio. The first CD, released in spring 2024, contains the Requiem and Stabat Mater by Elisabetta Brusa, one of the world’s most original and prestigious composers.
Since 2017, Riccardo Frizza has been music director of the Donizetti Opera festival in Bergamo, where he conducted Il castello di Kenilworth in 2018, Lucrezia Borgia in 2019 for the first performance of the new critical edition of the score published by Ricordi and Fondazione Teatro Donizetti, Marino Faliero and Belisario in 2020, L’elisir d’amore in 2021, La Favorite in 2022, Il diluvio universale in 2023, and Roberto Devereux in 2024. His Donizetti repertoire also includes Lucia di Lammermoor, Linda di Chamounix, Maria Stuarda, La fille du régiment, Don Pasquale and Anna Bolena.
On 4 December 2024, he was also appointed artistic director of Donizetti Opera for the three-year period 2025-2027.
In recent seasons, he has conducted operas and concerts at the Lyric Opera of Chicago (Norma), Liceu in Barcelona (Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Un ballo in maschera), Teatro La Fenice (Lucia di Lammermoor, Ernani, Aida), Müpa Budapest (I puritani, Aida), Festival Verdi in Parma (Falstaff, Simon Boccanegra, Attila), Bilbao Opera (Lucia di Lammermoor, La clemenza di Tito), Dallas Opera (Falstaff), Teatro alla Scala (Il pirata), Opéra Bastille (I puritani), Rome Opera House (Anna Bolena, Rigoletto), Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Omaggio a Caruso), Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Rigoletto, L’amico Fritz), Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (La Sonnambula), Teatro di San Carlo (Il barbiere di Siviglia, Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda), Teatro Real in Madrid (La Cenerentola), Metropolitan Opera (Lucia di Lammermoor), Teatro Comunale in Bologna (La Traviata, Werther), Teatro Regio in Turin (I Vespri siciliani, Le villi), Teatro Grande in Brescia (Madama Butterfly, Brescia version), Dresdner Philharmonie (I puritani). His idea led to the creation in 2020 of the opera-concert-recording project The Three Queens, conceived for Sondra Radvanovsky, and performed in theatres in Chicago, Barcelona, Naples and Madrid. In 2024, he conducted symphonic concerts in Madrid, Vienna, the Basque Country and the United Kingdom, where he completed a triumphant tour of eight concerts that began in Birmingham and ended in London.
His engagements for 2025 include La Fanciulla del West and Un ballo in maschera at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, La Favorite at the ABAO Bilbao Opera, Maria Padilla in Seville, La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Roberto Devereux at the San Carlo in Naples and various symphonic concerts with the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Budapest.
In June 2021, he won the Ópera XXI Award for Best Musical Director. The award, presented by the association of theatres, festivals and regular seasons of the same name in Spain, was given to him for his excellence in Lucia di Lammermoor at the Bilbao Opera in October 2019.
In November 2024, a jury made up of the most prestigious Spanish music critics awarded him the “Amics del Liceu” prize for best musical direction of the current season (Un ballo in maschera).
He has an impressive discography, especially in the field of opera. Since 2022, CDs have been released by singers of the calibre of Sondra Radvanovsky (The Three Queens, Pentatone), Nadine Sierra (Made for opera, Deutsche Grammophon), Javier Camarena (Signor Gaetano, Pentatone) and Jessica Pratt (Delirio, Tancredi Records). The DVDs of Mascagni’s opera L’amico Fritz (Dynamic, 2023) with the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Donizetti’s sacred opera Il diluvio universale (Dynamic, 2024) have also been very well received, as has the CD of the opera I puritani (Euroarts, 2024).
On the 2nd June 2024, he was appointed Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by President Sergio Mattarella, and on the 1st June 2025, he has been invited to conduct the traditional Concert at the Quirinale for the celebrations of the Republic Day, broadcast live on Rai Uno.
