The Italian conductor Rico Saccani won top prize in the Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition in Berlin in 1984. Before that he studied at the Summer Academy at Fontainebleau where he worked with legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. He performed over 300 piano recitals from 1974–1978 and appeared as soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the London Royal Philharmonic and other leading international Orchestras. He graduated with honors from the Graduate program at the University of Michigan and participated in the famous Tanglewood Summer Academy for young conductors where he worked with Leonard Bernstein, Andre Previn, Seizi Ozawa and Gustav Meier. It was during a seven-year apprentice internship with Italian conductor Giuseppe Patane, that Saccani won top prize in the 1984 Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition in Berlin. Saccani 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, Lucia di Lamermoor, Traviata, Butterfly and Boheme at the Vienna State Opera, Il Turco in Italia at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro plus La Bohème at the Philadelphia Opera with Luciano Pavarotti for the PBS American television network.
Saccani has also appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Hamburg State Opera, the Lyon Opera, the Monte-Carlo Opera, the Arena de Nîmes Festival, the Opéra Comique in Paris and with companies in Rome, Dresden, Genova, Naples and Cologne. From 1985 to 2004 Saccani served as Principal Guest conductor of the Hungarian State Opera which included new productions of Macbeth, Ballo in Maschera, Manon Lescaut, Nabucco, Andrea Chenier, La Gioconda, Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci, Norma and was highlighted by Verdi Marathon to celebrate the 2000 Millenium where he conducted seven different operas in 9 days. He returned to New York’s Carnegie Hall and Washington’s Kennedy Center that same year with the Iceland Symphony as their Music Director during their North American tour.
Saccani made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Il trovatore and was re-engaged for the first international radio broadcast of Traviata and Aida. He also conducted at the Teatro San Carlo (Naples), the Arena di Verona (Rigoletto), the Houston Grand Opera (Trovatore), 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 (Rigoletto and Nabucco) and the Santander Summer Music Festival in Spain.
From 1996 to 2005 he was also Music Director and Artistic Adviser of the Budapest Philharmonic. Other orchestras with whom he has collaborated with include the Tokyo Yomiuri Symphony, the Munich Bayerische Rundfunk, the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Irish National Symphony, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Madrid RTE and Bilbao Orchestras, the Gurzenisch Orchestra (Cologne), the Orchestre de chambre de Genève (Geneva Chamber Orchestra), the Hungarian National State Philharmonic, the Mannheim National Theater Orchestra, the Marseilles Opera Orchestra and many others. In 2005 he was the first foreigner to receive Hungary’s Legion of Honor award in recognition of “distinguished contributions to Hungary’s cultural life for over twenty years”. His discography is comprised of over 100 recordings (Spotify and iTunes). He is currently Conductor Emeritus of the Guiyang Symphony Orchestra in China and made his China National Opera (NCPA) debut in both 2019 and 2020 Barbiere di Siviglia and Trovatore.
Artists with whom Saccani has worked with include:
- 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
- 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