Italian pianist and conductor Cristiano Manzoni is internationally known as a specialist in the field of opera, coaching, and vocal accompaniment. He is a faculty member in the opera department at the Accademia Europea di Firenze, in Florence, Italy, and he is professor at FUA American University in Florence, where he teaches the courses Great Italian Opera, Vocal Techniques, and Operatic Repertory. He is also collaborative pianist in the class of conducting at the Conservatory L. Cherubini in Florence since 2000.
Cristiano is music director and collaborator for many singers, opera companies, and educational programs, including the Teatro Comunale and Teatro Verdi di Firenze, Accademia Musicale Chigiana di Siena, Teatro Verdi di Pisa, Giglio di Lucca, Goldoni di Livorno, e Camerata di Prato. For more than ten years he was music director and principal coach for the St. Mark’s Opera Company in Florence, which has staged productions of Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola, The Marriage of Figaro, Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, Il Trovatore, Un ballo in Maschera, La Bohème, La Traviata, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut, Gianni Schicchi, L’elisir d’amore, Don Pasquale, and Lucia di Lammermoor, among others.
He has collaborated in concerts with Andrea Boccelli, Giuseppe Baratti, Marco Stecchi, Eduardo Aladrén, Nelson Martinez, Susanna Rigacci, Katia Ricciarelli, Fiorenza Cedolins, Maria Dragoni and Leonardo de Lisi, among many others. He has also accompanied masterclasses held by Raina Kabaiwanska and Bernadette Manca di Nissa at the Academy Chigiana in Siena, as well as masterclasses with Gayletha Nichols (Met Opera), Giancarlo Montanaro, Giuseppe Baratti, and Liliana Poli.
In the last three years he has collaborated with Opera Lucca summer program where he conducted Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi in the centenary year of Giacomo Puccini's death in his beautiful native city of Lucca.
