Luigi De Donato was born in Cosenza where he pursued his musical education at the S. Giacomantonio Music Conservatory. Later he studied with Margaret Baker, Gianni Raimondi, Regina Resnik and Bonaldo Giaiotti.
He won several international singing sompetitions and received the Award for the best Bass Voice at the Francesco Paolo Tosti International Competition for Opera Singers.
Multitalented musician and singer, Luigi has an incredibly wide repertoire, spanning from early Baroque to Romanticism.
More recently, he made his debuts at the Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin in Handel’s Aci Galatea e Polifemo alongside Akamus.
One of the foremost interpreters of the repertoire of the 17th and 18th century, Luigi sang Monteverdi’s Orfeo (Caronte) and Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (Il Tempo and Nettuno) conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini and directed by Robert Wilson for la Scala, and returned to the roles for the Teatro Real in Madrid in a William Christie/Pier Luigi Pizzi production. With Jean-Christophe Spinosi, he took the stage as Seneca in L’Incoronazione di Poppea for the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.
His Handel roles include Ariodate (Serse) in Madrid, Moscow and Barcelona under the direction of Spinosi; Lucifero in La Resurrezione under Diego Fasolis and Vacáv Luks; Polifemo (Aci, Galatea e Polifemo) with Giovanni Antonini at the Salzburg Festival, and under Ruben Jais at both the Bucharest George Enescu Festival and London Wigmore Hall; Leone (Tamerlano) at the Teatro Real in Madrid with Paul McCreesh and Graham Vick; Argante (Rinaldo) on an Italian tour and Claudio (Agrippina) at La Seine Musicale in Paris both conducted by Ottavio Dantone; The King of Scotland (Ariodante) in a Gianluca Capuano/David Alden production at the Bolshoi Theatre.
In the field of Bel Canto, Luigi De Donato performed the roles of Alidoro in La Cenerentola at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Opéra de Lausanne conducted by Stefano Ranzani and staged by Adriano Sinivia; Podestà in La Gazza ladra at the Frankfurt Staatsoper; Mustafa in L’Italiana in Algeri at the Versailles Royal Opera and Beaune Festival where he also embodied Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia under the baton of Jérémie Rhorer.
Other career highlights include the title role in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Nice Opera, Le Grand Inquisiteur in Don Carlos at the Hamburg Staatsoper, Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte at the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse and Polyphème in Lully’s Acis et Galatée alongside Federico Maria Sardelli for the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
Luigi headlined Vivaldi’s Olimpiade (Alcandro, Clistene) with Alessandro De Marchi for the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik and, alongside Jean-Christophe Spinosi, for both the Opéra de Nice and Théâtre des Champs-Elysées.
Recently, he has reunited with Václav Luks for the launch of his first solo album “Polifemo, the Baroque Monster” they are currently presenting on a European tour. For Naïve and with the complicity of Fabio Biondi, he has released Vivaldi’s long-lost opera Argippo.
In the 2024/2025 season, Luigi will debut as Gessler in a new Francesco Lanzillotta/Bruno Ravella production of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell for the opening season of the Opéra de Lausanne and will make his role debut as Il Conte in Le Nozze di Figaro under the baton of Václav Luks in Brno, Caen and Litomyšl. He will return to Wigmore Hall for Polifemo in Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo with David Bates.
