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RICO SACCANI most recently served as Music Director/Artistic Adviser of the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and was principle guest conductor of the Hungarian State Opera. He won top prize in the Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition in Berlin. He was immediately engaged to perform with the Berlin and Stuttgart Radio Orchestras, the Royal Danish Philharmonic and the Spoleto Festival. His opera debut came in 1985 in Verdi’s Un Giorno di Regno at the Teatro Filarmonico di Verona. La Traviata at the Paris Opera and the Vienna State Opera, Il Turco in Italia at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro plus La Boheme at the Philadelphia Opera with Luciano Pavarotti for the PBS American television network immediately followed.
He has returned on numerous occasions as a guest conductor with the most important symphony orchestras around the globe including the Bavarian Radio Orchestra (Munich), the Czech Philharmonic, the Irish National Symphony, the Tokyo Philharmonic and Yomiuri Symphonies, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Madrid and Bilbao Orchestras, the Gurzenisch Orchestra (Cologne), the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, the Hungarian National State Philharmonic, the Mannheim National Theater Orchestra, the Marseilles Opera Orchestra and the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra.
Maestro Saccani has also appeared at the Hamburg State Opera, the Lyon Opera, the Monte-carlo Opera, the Arena de Nimes Festival, the Paris Opera Comique, Rome, Dresden and Cologne Operas. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Il Trovatore and re-engaged for the first international radio broadcast of Traviata and Aida. He was also invited to conduct at the Teatro San Carlo (Naples), the Arena di Verona (Rigoletto), the Houston Grand Opera, the Puccini Festival Torre del Lago (Turandot), the Teatro Bellini di Catania (La Favorita and I Puritani) as well as the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Avenches Swiss Festival and the Santander Summer Music Festival in Spain. Maestro Saccani initiated a “Verdi Marathon” in the Hungarian State Opera house in January 2000 celebrating the Millennium where he conducted seven Verdi operas in 9 evenings. He returned to New York’s Carnegie Hall and Washington’s Kennedy Center that same year with the Iceland Symphony as their Music Director on their acclaimed North American tour.
In 2005 he received Hungary’s Legion of Honor award recognizing his “distinguished contributions to Hungary’s cultural life for over 20 years”.
A few of the orchestras Maestro Saccani has worked with include:
American Symphony Orchestra (New York City), Arena di Verona Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Orchestra (Münich), BBC Sinfonietta (Rossini Festival, Pesaro Italy), Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bilbao Opera Orchestra, Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, Budapest Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Cologne Gurzenisch Symphony and Opera Orchestras, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra (Budapest), Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Genova Opera Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Hamburg Opera Orchestra, Hungarian State Opera Orchestra, Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra (AHZ), Houston Grand Opera Symphony Orchestra (Houston Symphony), Iceland Symphony Orchestra (Reykjavik), Irish National Opera Orchestra (Dublin), Karlsruhe Opera Orchestra, Lansing Symphony, Lausanne Symphony Orchestra, Leeds Opera Orchestra, Lyon Opera Orchestra, Madrid Radio-TV Symphony, Maggio Musicale Fiorentina Orchestra (Florence Italy), MATAV Symphony Orchestra (Budapest), Mannheim National Theater Philharmonic, Marseille Opera Orchestra, MAV Symphony Orchestra (Budapest), Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, NYC, Miskolcz Symphony Orchestra (Hungary), Monte-Carlo Opera Orchestra, Moscow Symphony (Puccini Festival, Torre del Lago Italy), National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (Dublin), New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Opera Comique (Paris) Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Oviedo Symphony Orchestra (Spain), Rheinland-Pfalz Symphony Orchestra (Ludwigshaffen), Rhode Island Philharmonic, Rome Opera Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic of Denmark (Copenhagen), Savaria Symphony Orchestra (Hungary), Spoletto Festival Symphony Orchestra (Italy) Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, Teatro Bellini Opera Orchestra (Catania), Teatro di Cagliari Opera Orchestra, Teatro San Carlo Opera Orchestra (Naples, Italy), Toulouse Opera Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, Trieste Opera Orchestra, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Vienna State Opera Symphony Orchestra (Vienna Philharmonic), Winnipeg Philharmonicm, Yomiuri (Tokyo) Symphony Orchestra
In addition, he has collaborated with some of the world’s greatest vocalists and instrumental soloists, including:
Alexandru Agache, Roberto Alagna, Simone Alaimo, Stefano Algeri, Lucia Aliberti, (Sir) Thomas Allen, Jaime Aragall, Francisco Araiza, Vladimir Atlantow, Gabriel Bacquier, Bruna Baglioni, Fedora Barbieri, Cecilia Bartoli, Lando Bartolini, Eva Batori, Beaux Arts Trio, Carlo Bergonzi Rockwell Blake, Paata Burchuladze, Renato Cappechi, Piero Cappucilli, Silvano Carroli, Giovanna Casolla, Phillippe Cassard, Jean-Phillippe Collard, Paolo Coni, Alessandro Corbelli, Firoenzo Cossotto, Carlo Cossutta, Iliana Cotrubas, Michelle Crider, Alberto Cupido, Enzo Dara, Ghena Dimitrova, Barry Douglass, Peter Dvosrky, Salvatore Fisichella, Alfredo Kraus, Alicia De Larrocha, Mariella Devia, Larissa Diatkova Ghena Dimitrova, Luciana D’Intino, Barry Douglas, Susan Dunn, Peter Dvorsky Valeria Esposito, Alain Fondary, Vladimir Galouzine, Cecilia Gasdia, Paolo Gavanelli, Bonaldo Giaiotti, Marcello Giordani, Denyce Graves, Edita Gruberova, Maria Guleghina, Jerry Hadley, Thomas Hampson, Yasuko Hayashi, Stephen Isserlis, Fiamma Izzo D’Amico, Kristjan Johansson, (Dame) Gwyneth Jones, Raina Kabaivanska, Jean-Phillippe Lafont, Luis Lima, Pilar Loringar, Gyorgina Lukacs, Niccola Martinucci, Eva Marton, Denis Matsouev, Sabine Meyer, Erica Miklosa, Sherrill Millnes, Aprile Milo, Leona Mitchell, Vasile Moldoveanu, James Morris, Gerry Mulligan and his jazz quartet, Judith Nemeth, Leo Nucci, Kun Woo Paik, Luciano Pavarotti, Paul Plishka, Laszlo Polgar, Juan Pons, Bruno Praticò, Ruggiero Raimondi, Katia Ricciarelli, Alberto Rinaldi, Andrea Rost, Kurt Rydl, Gloria Scalchi, Roberto Scandiuzzi, Dimitri Sitkovetsky, Diana Sovviero, Cheryl Studer, Sharon Sweet, Ilona Tokody, Natalia Troitskaya, Maxim Vengerov, Julian Lloyd-Weber, Dolora Zajick, Giorgio Zancanaro, Franco Zeffirelli, Pinchas Zuckerman