The second Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra concert at this year's Prague Autumn festival
took place on Wednesday 24th September. The programme was made up exclusively of works by Russian composers (Glazunov: Stenka Razin, Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, Stravinsky: Petruschka). The solo part was played by Enrico Pace from Rimini, 41 years old, while the illustrious Roberto Benzi conducted.
The maestro was born to Italian parents in 1937 in Marseilles. His musician father soon recognised his son's talent and led him to music theory and the piano from the age of three. Even before he was ten Roberto Benzi had begun the study of orchestral conducting and made his debut as a conductor at the age of only eleven. His exceptional, almost miraculously precocious talent soon brought him to the attention of film-makers. The director Georges Lacombe filmed the Prélude a la gloire about him in 1949, which was recognised at the Cannes Film Festival, and three years later this was joined by L'Appel du destin in which Roberto appeared alongside Jean Marais. Both films were very successful, and secured fame for Roberto Benzi at an early age, and affected the younger generation of the time most positively.
Roberto Benzi later studied music at the Sorbonne and completed his musical education with private lessons in analysis and composition. During his more than fifty year-long professional career Benzi has conducted the world's most famous orchestras, including the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras. He has also conducted at many music festivals, for example in Vienna, Holland, Aix-en-Provence, Besançon, Montreux, Lausanne, Prague, Petrograd and the Gulbenkian.
In 1954 he staged his first op.era, Rossini's Barber of Seville in Marseilles, and since then has worked in many major op.era houses, e.g. in the Metrop.olitan Op.era in New York, in the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, in the Grand Théatre in Geneva, in the Verdi Theatre in Trieste and in the National Theatres in Prague and Sofia.
For the 1959/60 season he was engaged for the first ever staging of Carmen at the Garnier Op.era in Paris. From 1960 onwards he made a series of recordings for Philips, EMI Classics, Forlane and Naxos. Roberto Benzi founded the Aquitaine Orchestra of Bordeaux, of which he was the resident conductor from 1972-1987. He was then the musical and artistic director of the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra from 1989-1998 and artistic supervisor and conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands (1991-95).
Since 1973 he has given master classes in conducting in France, Switzerland and the Netherlands and has published many orchestrations as part of the Peters/Frankfurters, Salabert, Lemoine and Billaudot editions.
Roberto Benzi is a Knight of the Légion d'Honneur and holder of the Order of Merit, the Academic Palm and the Royal Order of the Lion of the Netherlands.
