Gianluca Capuano

Gianluca Capuano was awarded the Premio Abbiati as best conductor of the year in 2022. He has been chief conductor of Les Musiciens du Prince — Monaco since 2019. He studied organ, composition and conducting at the conservatory in his home city of Milan, and went on to specialize in early music at the Scuola Civica there. He also completed a degree in theoretical philosophy at the University of Milan.

As a soloist and conductor, he has performed throughout Europe and in the USA, Russia and Japan. In 2006 he founded the instrumental and vocal ensemble Il Canto di Orfeo, dedicated to exploring a wide range of Baroque repertory, with which he works with some of the finest musicians and singers active in the field of historically informed performance practice. With his vocal ensemble he has also participated in Raskatov’s A Dog’s Heart and Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten at La Scala, Milan.

In August 2016 Gianluca Capuano came to international attention when he stepped in at short notice to conduct Norma with Cecilia Bartoli on the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival. Bartoli then invited him to conduct further performances of Norma at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and in Baden-Baden. Since then, he has collaborated with Bartoli and Les Musiciens du Prince on numerous opera productions and concerts. At the Salzburg Festival since 2017 he has appeared with them in staged productions of Ariodante, Alcina, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Orfeo ed Euridice, La clemenza di Tito and the Vivaldi pasticcio Hotel Metamorphosis; in concert performances of La donna del lago, La clemenza di Tito and Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo; in a marionette production of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo; and in several concerts.

His engagements in the 2025/26 season have included Il barbiere di Siviglia and L’elisir d’amore at the Vienna State Opera; La Cenerentola at La Scala, Milan; Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Turin; Giulio Cesare in Zurich and at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome; Die Walküre at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo; and Orfeo ed Euridice on tour with Les Musiciens du Prince. At the Salzburg Whitsun Festival 2026 he conducts Il viaggio a Reims and a marionette production of Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria.

Recent engagements have also included La Cenerentola in Zurich, Munich, Vienna and Florence; L’italiana in Algeri in Zurich; Il barbiere di Siviglia, L’elisir d’amore, L’Orfeo, Giulio Cesare, La clemenza di Tito, Das Rheingold and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Monte Carlo; Giulio Cesare (with Les Musiciens du Prince) and Don Pasquale at the Vienna State Opera; Semele and Norma in Munich; Orfeo ed Euridice in Valencia; and Giulio Cesare and Orfeo ed Euridice on concert tours with Les Musiciens du Prince to many of Europe’s important music venues

Other important past projects have included Il matrimonio segreto and Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno in Cologne; the Christmas Oratorio and L’elisir d’amore in Hamburg; Ariodante, Il turco in Italia, La Cenerentola, Alcina and La clemenza di Tito — all with Les Musiciens du Prince — in Monte Carlo and on tour; Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste in Rome; Il matrimonio segreto at the Dutch National Opera; Guillaume Tell at the Chorégies d’Orange; Il barbiere di Siviglia in Palermo; Mozart’s Requiem in Bari; L’elisir d’amore in Madrid; La Cenerentola and Iphigénie en Tauride in Zurich; Cimarosa’s Il maestro di cappella in a double-bill with Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna in Genoa; Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in Lucerne; Le nozze di Figaro and Ariodante in Moscow; and Alcina in Florence.