Roberto De Simone

Roberto De Simone (; 25 August 1933 – 6 April 2025) was an Italian stage director, academic teacher, playwright, composer and ethnomusicologist. Beginning as a harpsichordist, he turned to research of early Italian music and co-founded the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare to perform it. The musical La Gatta Cenerentola, which he authored, composed and directed, was first performed at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto in 1976 and received international recognition. He directed the San Carlo Theatre from 1981 to 1987, and was stage director of operas at La Scala in Milan from 1986. He was director of the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella from 1995 to 2000.

Life and career Born in Naples on 25 August 1933, At the same time he started being active as an ethnomusical researcher and essayist, mainly focused on the southern Italy folk music of oral tradition, with specific interest in tarantism and funeral laments. In the second half of the 1960s he met some musicians who shared with him an interest in traditional music, and this encounter led to the foundation of the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare, with whom De Simone collaborated for a decade. He approached the in 1972 as a possible venue for the troupe.

In 1976, he made his debut as a playwright (also serving as librettist, composer, and director) with the musical La Gatta Cenerentola, which was first staged at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto and later enjoyed national and international success. Invited by Riccardo Muti, De Simone directed Verdi's Nabucco to open the 1986/87 season at La Scala in Milan, with Renato Bruson and Ghena Dimitrova in the leading roles. The production was revived in 1988 and 1996. In 1989, he directed Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice with Bernadette Manca di Nissa as Orfeo, and also Pergolesi's Lo frate 'nnamorato. In 1990, he was scenic director for Mozart's Idomeneo with Giuseppe Sabbatini in the title role, again for the opening of the season. He collaborated with Muti again for the opening of the 1995/96 season with Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, broadcast and produced also for LaScalaTv. and the title of cavaliere of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2019.