Giacomo Prestia

Giacomo Prestia was born in Florence; his mother was a soprano and his father a choir and orchestra conductor. From an early age he breathed the air of opera at home, opera was always present and he immediately became passionate not only about singing but also about the characters and plots of the librettos. He starts singing jokingly, during evenings with friends; but soon his parents realise that the boy does indeed possess an important voice.

When he attends a concert of the ‘Damnation of Faust’, he is literally thunderstruck by the choir and in particular the bass section. So he decides to start studying singing to realise his dream.
Through Maestro Gabbiani, director of the choir in Florence, he makes the acquaintance of what will become his main Maestro and mentor, Sergio Catoni. Thanks to the charisma and professionalism of this figure, for two years he undertook a total revision of his technique in terms of the use of muscles and sound emission. These are the early eighties.

He succeeded in joining his city's choir, where he remained until 1992. He won the opera competition in Parma in 1991 and made his debut in Verdi's Alzira. In 1992, he won the Luciano Pavarotti Competition and, on the advice of the great tenor's first wife, he began to audition for numerous competitions that would lead to his definitive success as a soloist.

A milestone in his career was his meeting with Paolo Montarsolo, from whom he learnt theatrical timing and stage art. In 1995, during a Rigoletto in Monte Carlo, he met Benito Vassura, agent at the time for important artists such as Ricciarelli and Raimondi. She then joined his roster of singers and worked in the best theatres in the world.
Fundamental in this respect are his debut in the splendid role of Philip II in Marseille in 1997 and La Forza del Destino conducted by Muti at La Scala in 1999.

Giacomo Prestia has now definitively established himself as a bass with a distinctly Verdian vocality, in terms of colour and extension, up to impervious notes such as E-flat below the staff.
His brilliant career led him to collaborate with the most prestigious conductors: Claudio Abbado, Myung-Whun Chung, Antonio Pappano, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, George Pretre, Daniel Oren, Nello Santi and many others. His CV is enriched by the work he has done with world-famous conductors such as De Ana, Vick, Zeffirelli, Maestrini, Pier'Alli, Kokkos and Krief.

Recent successes include his debut in I Vespri Siciliani at the Teatro Regio di Parma in 2010 and his debut in the wonderful role of Mefistofele on the Pisa and Lucca circuit in 2016.

Two new productions stand out in 2018: La Gioconda in the role of Alvise Badoero in the Theatres of the Emilia Romagna circuit (Piacenza, Modena, Reggio Emilia) and Macbeth at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie Liège. He also integrated the teaching staff of the Accademia del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. The following year, he intensified his Masterclasses, taking part in a particularly prestigious one at The National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. In summer, he resumes the role of Fiesco at The Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv and closes the year with I Due Foscari at the Verdi Festival in Parma.

In January 2020, he is awarded the prestigious Verdi d'Oro prize by the Corale Verdi di Parma and opens the 2019/2020 season of the Teatro Regio di Parma with the opera Turandot in the role of Timur. In November, despite the pandemic, he participated with baritone Simone Piazzola in a live concert streamed from the Teatro Sociale di Rovigo ‘Gli uomini di Verdi’ (Verdi's Men), an evening during which the two artists performed the Busseto composer's most beautiful arias and most famous duets. In December of the same year, he was awarded the prestigious ‘Galeone d'oro 2020’ career prize.

In 2021 he celebrates 30 years at the Magnani Theatre in Fidenza, playing Filippo II. In November, the film Gianni Schicchi was released in the cinema, directed by Damiano Michieletto and with an exceptional cast: Roberto Frontali, Giancarlo Giannini, Federica Guida, Vincenzo Costanzo, Manuela Custer, Caterina Di Tonno, Marcello Nardis, Guglielmo Angeloni, Veronica Simeoni, Roberto Maietta, Bruno Taddia, Matteo Peirone, Domenico Colaianni, Andrea Pellegrini, Gaetano Triscari. The film screened in several cinemas and broadcast by RAI was a great success with the public and critics.

In 2022 he is Banco in Macbeth in Nice and Antibes, and Oroveso in Norma in Oviedo; in 2023 he is the Commendatore in Mozart's Don Giovanni in the Emilian Theatre circuit. He finished the year with Aida in La Coruña, Rigoletto and Forza del Destino at the Magnani Theatre in Fidenza. In 2024 he resumed the production of Turandot in the Emilian theatres, interrupted due to Covid, debuted in Manon Lescaut at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna and then in Malaga. He closed the year with La Forza del destino in Barcelona.

‍