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06 February 2020 A custodian of the Italian opera tradition has left. Nello Santi passed away at 88 after a very long career as conductor on podiums all over the world. He was a specialist in the lyric repertoire from bel canto to realism.
Born in Adria, in the province of Rovigo, in 1931, he made his debut at the age of 20 in Padua with Verdi's Rigoletto. Since then, Santi has directed the most important Italian theaters in the most important theaters. From 1958 to 1969 he was permanent director of the Zurich Opera. He made his debut in Salzburg in 1960 with Verdi's Don Carlo and in the same year at Covent Garden in London with La traviata, one of the titles to which he was most attached, so much so that he still directed it in 2017 at La Scala in Milan, with Anna Netrebko in role of the protagonist. In his international career, his debut at the Metropolitan in New York in 1962, still with a Verdi opera, Un ballo in maschera.
All the opera greats sang under his wand, from Piero Cappuccilli to Boris Christoff, from Franco Corelli to Joan Sutherland, from Placido Domingo to Montserrat Caballé, from Katia Ricciarelli to José Carreras, from Leo Nucci to Ferruccio Furlanetto.
In his sixty years of activity he was also the teacher of many directors, who with great respect called him "Pope Saints". Known for respecting the score, his extended times were famous. Her last engagement was a Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti in Zurich, in March 2019.