Speranza Scappucci

Beginning with the 2025/26 season, Speranza Scappucci will serve as Principal Guest Conductor at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London. She is the first Italian woman to have conducted both an opera production and the orchestra of the Filarmonica della Scala in Milan. From 2017 to 2022, she was Music Director of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège. Starting in 2026, she will assume the artistic direction of the MiTo SettembreMusica Festival in Milan and Turin for a period of two years. She is a regular guest at leading opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera New York, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Staatsoper Berlin, Opéra National de Paris, Canadian Opera Company Toronto, and the Vienna State Opera. 

She opens the 2025/26 season with her debut in Les Vêpres Siciliennes in London, followed by Otello in Strasbourg, Un ballo in maschera in Paris, and Lucie de Lammermoor at the Opéra Comique. In 2026, she returns to La Scala with a new production of Lucia di Lammermoor. 

In recent seasons, she has conducted Don Pasquale, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and Madama Butterfly in Paris; La Bohème and Attila in London; Rigoletto and La rondine at the Met; as well as La traviata in Munich and Berlin, Turandot in Washington, and Lucia di Lammermoor in Zurich and Tokyo. In 2026, she will make her debut at the Salzburg Festival. 

During her tenure as Music Director in Liège, she led productions such as Dialogues des Carmélites, Eugene Onegin, Simon Boccanegra, Aida, and La sonnambula. Additional engagements have taken her to Zurich, Toronto, Toulouse, Vienna, Dresden, Rome, and Turin. She has conducted concerts in Bordeaux, Lyon, Budapest, and Paris, and with orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and the Filarmonica della Scala. 

From 2022 to 2024, she hosted the television series La gioia della musica on RAI 3, in which she introduced major operatic and symphonic works from the piano and with orchestra. Her discography includes recordings on Warner Classics, Opus Arte, and Deutsche Grammophon, featuring artists such as Marina Rebeka, Saimir Pirgu, and Ödön Rácz. 

Speranza Scappucci was named Commendatore della Repubblica Italiana in 2016 and was awarded the French Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2021. Her further honors include the Premio Porto Venere Donna, Premio Margherita Hack, Premio Vittorio De Sica, and Premio De Sanctis Europe.