Italian Conductor, Bruno Bartoletti, Dies at 86

Bruno Bartoletti, Italian conductor and artistic director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, has died on June 9th. He was 86 years old.

His death was announced by Lyric and by Teatro Comunale in Florence.

Bartoletti studied at the Cherubini Conservatory in Florence, and made his debut in that city conducting Rigoletto in 1953. After conducting throughout Italy, he would become in turn artistic director of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (1957-64) and the Rome Opera (1965-73).

He became permanent conductor at the Copenhagen Opera (1957-60), and at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1956, becoming its artistic director in 1964. He is invited at the Glyndebourne Festival, the Salzburg Festival, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, also appearing at the Royal Opera House in London, the Paris Opera, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.

His career was exclusively dedicated to opera, and he conducted several world premieres of works by composers such as Lodovico Rocca, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Alberto Ginastera and Krzysztof Penderecki, and took part in several opera recordings.

He also devoted himself to teaching at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena.

The Chicago Tribune Obituary can be read here.