The Italian conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti, passed through the greatest opera houses and concert halls in the world, died Wednesday at the age of 75 in Monaco, announced the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra of which he was the conductor. honorary since 2016.
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“
It is with great sadness that the board of directors, the management and all the musicians and staff of the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra have just learned of the death this morning in Monaco of the former artistic and musical director and honorary conductor of the orchestra: maestro Gianluigi Gelmetti,
”the orchestra said in a press release on Wednesday.
The causes of death were not specified.
Born in Rome on September 11, 1945, a former pupil of Sergiu Celibidache, Franco Ferrara and Hans Swarowski and a great specialist in Rossini, this Italian with a strong personality was also renowned for his interpretations of Beethoven's symphonic works.
He was notably titular conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Orchestra in Germany for almost ten years, musical director of the Rome Opera from 2000 to 2009 and principal conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 2004 to 2009. In Monaco, he conducted the orchestra in the early 1990s and then from 2012 to 2016, before being appointed honorary conductor and obtaining Monegasque nationality, granted by the prince.
Also composer of works for choir and orchestra, and director of operas, he leaves a vast discography, for EMI especially but also for other labels, testifying to an immense richness of repertoire.
His last two appearances with the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic date back to a memorable
Requiem
by Verdi on the eve of the first confinement and a concert given as part of the Italian week on October 21, 2020.
