Giuseppe Filianoti

Since his professional debut in 1998, Mr. Filianoti has emerged as a beacon of style and nuance in a wide-ranging repertoire. While the majority of his performances have centered on the bel canto and later 19th-century lyric Italian and French works, he has also successfully essayed roles by Cherubini and Mozart through those of such 20th century masters as Strauss, Debussy, and Stravinsky.

Born in Reggio Calabria, the Italian tenor first obtained a degree in Literature, a background he considers to be essential to his operatic foundation and discipline. In 1997, he graduated from the “F. Cilea” Conservatory. Mr. Filianoti won a highly-coveted two-year scholarship to Milan’s Accademia del Teatro alla Scala. During this period of intensive fine-tuning of his voice, he met Alfred Kraus, who became his mentor and the decisive influence in helping the young singer develop his artistic style, technique and virtuosity.

Mr. Filianoti made his debut in 1998 at Bergamo as Dom Sébastien. In 1999, after singing Argirio in Tancredi at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, he was engaged by Riccardo Muti to sing in Paisiello’s Nina, o sia pazza per amore. In 2003, again under Mo. Muti, he opened the season of La Scala with Rossini’s Moïse et Pharaon. He made his Covent Garden debut in 2000 as Alfredo in La traviata, returning there in the title role of Donizetti’s Dom Sébastien in 2005 and more recently as Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore. He is a frequent guest at La Scala, where he has performed in Falstaff, Rigoletto, Lucrezia Borgia, Gianni Schicchi, Un giorno di regno, and Lucia di Lammermoor. At Rome’s Teatro dell’Opera he has sung Faust, Gianni Schicchi, Die Zauberflöte and Werther, and made his debut with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in a concert version of Idomeneo.

In 2005 he made his widely celebrated American debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor. In subsequent seasons he returned to the Company as Edgardo, as well as in many of his other signature roles, including Nemorino, Il duca di Mantova, Ruggero (La rondine) and Hoffmann. In addition to the Met, in the U.S. he has also appeared to great acclaim at the San Francisco Opera as Edgardo and at New York’s Carnegie Hall as Federico in Cilea’s L’Arlesiana. Nemorino was the role of his debut at the Los Angeles Opera in 2009, as well as at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2010, where he returned in 2011 for Edgardo. The vehicle for Mr. Filianoti’s debut with Washington Concert Opera was the title role in Werther, one of his favorite operas. His US recital debut took place on the Harriman Jewell Series in April 2012.

Additionally, Mr. Filianoti has performed in the major European opera houses: with both companies in Berlin (Faust / Deutsche Oper); the Verdi Requiem (at the Philharmonie) and Don Giovanni, for the Staatsoper, both under Daniel Barenboim; Vienna (Traviata, Elisir and Lucia); Barcelona (Traviata, Rigoletto, Elisir and Lucia); Florence (Traviata, Zauberflöte and Don Giovanni); Hamburg (Idomeneo, Hoffmann La bohème and Faust); Madrid (Traviata, Werther and Celos aun del aire matan); Paris (Rondine, Elisir, Hoffmann and Manon).

In 2004, Giuseppe Filianoti was awarded the Franco Abbiati Italian Critics´ Prize as Best Singer of the Year.

The tenor regularly expands his diverse discography and videography. A champion of the work of his countryman Francesco Cilea, he recorded L'Arlesiana in an edition featuring some unpublished pieces. Inn 2016, Ricordi published his critical edition of the Chamber compositions for voice and piano and in the 2021, the critical edition of the Complete Works for Piano. He has also taught at the Music Conservatory 'F. Torrefranca” in Vibo Valentia, and History of Music at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo.