About
Massimo Cavalletti (Lucca, 30 October 1978) is an Italian baritone.
Born in Lucca, from a very young age he cultivated his passion for music by studying piano and later singing with maestro Graziano Polidori. He completed his studies at the Teatro alla Scala Academy then directed by Leyla Gencer, refining his vocal and theatrical technique with the masters Luciana Serra, Leo Nucci, Luis Alva.
He made his debut in 2004 at the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo in the opera Parisina in a production of the Teatro alla Scala Academy. In 2005 he debuted at the Teatro alla Scala with La bohème in the role of Schaunard and then with Il Barbiere di Siviglia in the role of Figaro.
From 2006 he began his international career with La fanciulla del West at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and then in Dublin with La bohème. He also continued his activity in Italy with Otello at the Teatro Regio in Parma and with Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Teatro Regio in Turin. He also returns to the Teatro alla Scala where he plays Enrico Ashton in Lucia di Lammermoor. In the same role Donizetti also made his debut in Bologna, while in Genoa he played Melitone in the Force of Destiny.
From 2007 he began a long and fruitful collaboration with Opernhaus Zürich where over the years he will have the opportunity to debut in several roles, including Carmen, Anna Bolena, Theatrical convenience and inconveniences, Poliuto, La Juive, Le Cid, Don Carlo , Falstaff, Simon Boccanegra.
In the meantime he continues his international activity that led him to perform in Berlin, Dresden, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, in Leipzig, in Brussels, in Valencia up to Tokyo and Beijing.
In 2010 his debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in the Bohème. He later went to Berlin and then to the Teatro alla Scala with Simon Boccanegra under the direction of Daniel Barenboim.
In 2012 he was at the Salzburg Festival with La bohème in the role of Marcello, with Daniele Gatti directing a cast of great performers including Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczała, Nino Machaidze, Carlo Colombara in what was the premiere of a Puccini opera at the prestigious Salzburg festival. Later he returned to the Teatro alla Scala still in the Bohème, and then, in the same Puccini opera, to the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, under the direction of Riccardo Chailly.
2013 begins with Falstaff at the Teatro alla Scala in a production by Robert Carsen under the direction of Daniel Harding with Ambrogio Maestri and Barbara Frittoli. Then he is in Vienna in Carmen in the role of Escamillo at the Wiener Staatsoper with Roberto Alagna and Elina Garanca. He continues his season returning for the second consecutive year to the Salzburg Festival in an unusual production of Falstaff, with the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Zubin Mehta, together with Ambrogio Maestri and Fiorenza Cedolins. After a tour in Japan where the Teatro alla Scala brought the entire cast of Falstaff already staged in Milan at the beginning of the year, he returns to the stage with Don Carlo, in the role of Rodrigo. The year 2013 ends in Germany with the participation of Lucia di Lammermoor in Hamburg and the Bohème in Munich.
In April 2014 he returned to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York as Marcello in the Bohème, with Vittorio Grigolo and Anita Hartig, directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
In the following June he is in Amsterdam, where he debuts in the Dutch National Opera as Ford in Falstaff, with Ambrogio Maestri and Fiorenza Cedolins, under the direction of Daniele Gatti. Immediately after he made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London, still in the role of Marcello in the Bohème, with Vittorio Grigolo and Angela Gheorghiu. Subsequently he is in Matsumoto (Japan) for the homonymous Festival with Falstaff and then again at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York as Escamillo in Carmen. Finally back to the Dutch National Opera in the Bohème.
2015 opens with a series of debuts. For the first time on the stage of the New Opera Theater of Florence, he debuted in the role of Riccardo in I Puritani by Vincenzo Bellini and then in the role of Don Carlo in Ernani by Giuseppe Verdi. He continued debuting also in the role of Renato in Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, under the direction of maestro Zubin Mehta. The year continues with participation in productions of the Teatro alla Scala in the usual baritone roles in Carmen, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La bohème and Falstaff. Still with Falstaff, he closes the year in Tokyo.