Back to basics this week with a concert by the venerable Orchestre National de France under the direction of Manlio Benzi, recorded by the equally venerable Radio France at l’Theatre de Champs Elyseés on May 26, 2011.
Pretty straight-forward with a performance of Schubert’s Symphony Number 3 – The Fantasia “Wanderer” D, 760 and ending up with Sibelius’ Symphony Number 2. Announcements are in Spanish as this was a relay from French Radio.
Manlio Benzi was born in Rimini, he studied music at the Arrigo Boito Academy of Music in Parma, where he graduated in Composition in 1989 with M° Togni and in Orchestral Conducting in 1990 with M° Gatti, obtaining in 1991 a first class honours degree in Musicology at the University of Arts, Parma.
He specialized in Orchestral Conducting at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Finalist in the International Competition “L. V. Matacic” in Zagreb, Manlio Benzi was awarded the prize for Best Conductor in the Operatic Repertoire (1995).
In the season 1996- 97 he was appointed Permanent Conductor at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad.
In the period 1997-99 he was Associate Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra “G. Verdi” of Milan, where he worked alongside many renowned conductors such as Muti, Gatti, Chailly, Francis and Ceccato.
He made his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper (Madama Butterfly), Staatsoper Stuttgart (Cenerentola) Paris Opera and Lincoln Center of New York (Orfeo e Euridice), Semperoper in Dresden (Macbeth) and Staatsoper Hamburg (Madama Butterfly).
Recently he has been regulary invited in Holland Park Festival in London (Gianni Schicchi, Zanetto, Madama Butterfly, Adriana Lecouvrer, Aida)
He conducted new productions at Teatro La Fenice of Venice (Lucia di Lammermoor, Rota’s Il Principe Porcaro ), Fondazione Arturo Toscanini in Parma and Busseto (Traviata), Valle d’Itria Festival (Gounod ‘La Reine de Saba’ and ‘Le Polyeucte’, Giordano ‘Siberia’ and ‘Marcella’, Mascagni ‘Amica’), Macerata Opera Festival (Don Carlo), National Theatre of Estonia in Tallinn (Traviata, Madama Butterfly and Puritani), Théatre Royal de Wallonie in Liège (Tosca), National Theatre of Georgia in Tbilisi (Ballo in Maschera), Theater Erfurt (Don Carlo, La Gioconda, Andrea Chénier ,Beethoven symphony n. 9), Opera North in Leeds (Capuleti e Montecchi), Volksoper Wien (Rigoletto, Tosca), Opera Ireland (Capuleti e Montecchi).
He has conducted many orchestras worldwide, among them, Orchestra National de France, Orchestra of Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Orchestra of Pomeriggi Musicali of Milano, the orchestra of Teatro Regio in Torino, the Orchestra of Teatro Comunale in Bologna, the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia in Roma, the Orchestra Haydn in Bolzano, Orchestra Filarmonica of Emilia Romagna ‘Toscanini’.
Now we have the principals out of the way – time to hunker down, press Play and tune out.
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