After studying the harp and harpsichord at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan, Ottavio Dantone began his career as a concert performer at a young age specialising in the Early Music repertoire. He was the first Italian instrumentalist to be awarded first prize in the two most important harpsichord competitions in the world: the Paris International Competition (1985) and the Bruges International Competition (1986). In 1996, he became musical director of the Accademia Bizantina Orchestra in Ravenna and performed with them in some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, including the Berlin and Vienna Konzerthaus, The Barbican Centre in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. He has conducted many of the great orchestras in concert including the Berlin Staatskapelle, the Orchestre national de France, the Philharmonic Orchestra of La Scala in Milan and the Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. In 1999, he made his debut as an opera conductor by conducting the world premiere of Giuseppe Sarti’s Giulio Sabino at the Teatro Alighieri in Ravenna. Since then, he has conducted numerous opera productions expanding his repertoire to include the classical and romantic periods with works such as Il Viaggio a Reims, Così fan Tutte and Rinaldo at Milan’s La Scala, Rinaldo at the Glyndebourne Festival and London’s Royal Albert Hall, L’Arbore di Diana at the Teatro Real in Madrid, L’Italiana in Algeri at the Berlin Staatsoper, the Lausanne Opera and the Palau de les Arts in Valencia, Così fan Tutte in Strasbourg, Orlando and Rinaldo at the Beaune Festival, Le Nozze di Teti e Peleo and Edipo a Colono at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, Marin Faliero at the Teatro Regio in Parma, The Barber of Seville in Oviedo, Tancredi in Lausanne, La Verità in Cimento and La Clemenza di Tito in Zurich, The Magic Flute and La Clemenza di Tito at La Fenice in Venice, The Abduction from the Seraglio at the Teatro Piccini in Bari and the Teatro Verdi in Trieste, and The Marriage of Figaro at the Hamburg Staatsoper… More recently, he conducted Così fan Tutte at the Salzburg Festival, L’Orfeo at the Lausanne Opera and the Monteverdi Festival in Cremona, and L’Incoronazione di Dario at the Teatro Regio in Turin. Since 2003, he has recorded regularly for Decca and Naïve.Projects: Giulio Cesare in Essen (Alfried Krupp Saal) and at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, L’Incoronazione di Poppea, La Scala di seta, and The Marriage of Figaro at the Zurich Opera.Ottavio Dantone is making his debut appearance at the Paris Opera.