Alberto Triola is a performing arts manager, artistic director, opera stage director, and university and AFAM lecturer. Since 1990, he has worked at the highest levels of theatre and music management, building extensive experience in the direction of theatres, orchestras, festivals, and cultural institutions, both from an artistic and an administrative and managerial perspective.
He is an adjunct professor at the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, where he teaches the Laboratory of Management of Performing Arts within the Master’s Degree Programme in Innovation and Organization of Culture and the Arts – GIOCA, and at the University of Milan, where he teaches the Laboratory of Management of Performing Arts. He also teaches Organization and Management of Music Theatre in the First-Level Master’s Programme in Performing Arts Management at the University of Verona. In the 2026/27 academic year, he is a member of the Steering Committee and a lecturer in the Second-Level Master’s Programme in Artistic Planning and Music Production Management, jointly promoted by the University of Milan and the “Giuseppe Verdi” Conservatory of Milan, where he teaches Organization of Artistic Production and Festival Planning. He also teaches at the Milan Conservatory and at the Accademia del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
Among his most recent appointments, he served as Superintendent and Artistic Director of the Arturo Toscanini Foundation in Parma from 2018 to 2023 and, from 2010 to 2021, as Artistic Director of the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca, where he founded and directed the “Rodolfo Celletti” Bel Canto Academy. From 2013 to 2017, he was General Director of the Fondazione Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, contributing to the Foundation’s extraordinary financial recovery plan and structural reorganization, with responsibilities for management control, human resources, labour relations, and the coordination of its main administrative and organizational functions.
He began his professional career at Teatro alla Scala, where he worked from 1990 to 2002 in a number of roles in production, artistic administration, music direction support, and stage production management. He collaborated, among others, with Alberto Zedda, Roman Vlad, Cesare Mazzonis, Paolo Arcà, and Riccardo Muti, serving as Muti’s organizational assistant from 1995 to 2000.
In 2002, he joined the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto as Artistic Secretary; he subsequently held artistic leadership positions at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, the Teatro Ponchielli in Cremona, and the Monteverdi Festival. From 2007 to 2009, he served as Assistant to the Superintendent and Artistic Director of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna; from 2008 to 2010, he directed the Scuola dell’Opera Italiana, an advanced training programme for young singers, conductors, stage directors, set designers, costume designers, and répétiteurs. He has also worked as artistic consultant for the Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini and the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari.
Since 2008, he has also pursued a career as an opera stage director in Italy and abroad. He has directed productions for Wexford Festival Opera, Stadttheater Lübeck, Theater an der Wien, the National Theatre in Belgrade, Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Teatro Verdi in Trieste, and Teatro Sociale in Rovigo. In the United States, he collaborated with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Fabio Luisi on Salome, Eugene Onegin, and, in 2024, Der Ring des Nibelungen in semi-staged form.
He is the author of monographs, essays, and contributions devoted to the history, organization, and production of opera. His books include Riccardo Muti alla Scala and Giulio Gatti Casazza. A Life for Opera. His Master’s thesis, The Representation of an Impossible Space. Imagining a “Great Concert Hall” in Milan (1871–1908), received the 2024 Prize of the Italian Society of Musicology and is currently being prepared for publication in the Society’s “Percorsi” series. His forthcoming book for Il Saggiatore, La macchina delle meraviglie. Il direttore artistico e l’opera in musica: mestiere, memoria e curatorial practices, is scheduled for publication in 2027.
Born in Milan in 1965, he graduated cum laude in Music and Performing Arts from the University of Milan and holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, awarded with full marks.
He has served as President of the “Nino Rota” Conservatory in Monopoli, regularly sits on international juries for vocal and music competitions, and conducts advanced training activities, workshops, and masterclasses at universities, conservatories, academies, and opera studios. Since 2025, he has taught at the Accademia del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, where he lectures in Musical Dramaturgy Applied to the Operatic Repertoire and, since 2026, in Management of the Performing Arts.
The International Maria Callas Festival in Verona awarded him the Maria Callas Medal for “his exemplary work in the managerial and artistic fields and for his extraordinary commitment to discovering and fostering young artists.”
