Vincenzo Scalera

The pianist Vincenzo Scalera was born in New Jersey (USA) to Italian-American parents and received his first piano lessons at the age of five. He graduated from the Manhattan School of Music and began his professional career as a répétiteur and assistant conductor at the New Jersey State Opera. After continuing his studies in Italy, he was engaged in 1980 as study director and pianist at La Scala in Milan, where he conducted rehearsals for such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, and Carlos Kleiber. Scalera has made guest appearances at the Salzburg Festival, the Edinburgh Festival, in Martina Franca, Les Chorégies d’Orange, the Carinthian Summer, and the Rossini Festival in Pesaro. As an accompanist, he has worked with such singers as Carlo Bergonzi, Montserrat Caballé, José Carreras, Vittorio Grigolo, Sumi Jo, Raina Kabaivanska, Katia Ricciarelli, Renata Scotto, Cesare Siepi, and Lucia Valentini Terrani. He has performed with these artists in the world’s leading cultural capitals. In addition, he enjoys a long-standing artistic partnership with Juan Diego Flórez: in the 2021-22 season, they will perform recitals together at the Salzburg Festival, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Berlin Staatsoper, in Turku in Finland, and in La Scala in Milan. Scalera’s discography includes a complete recording of Giuseppe Verdi’s song oeuvre with Ricciarelli, the anthology Art of Belcanto Canzone with Bergonzi, and the album Comeback Concerts with Carreras. As a harpsichordist, Vincenzo Scalera can be heard on DVD recordings of Rossini’s La cenerentola and Il viaggio a Reims conducted by Claudio Abbado. He teaches at the Accademia d’Arti e Mestieri of La Scala di Milano.

Lucerne Festival debut on 7 September 2017, in a recital with Juan Diego Flórez.

July 2021