An International Jury for the New Voices of Opera

Mario Cassi, a baritone from Arezzo, has performed at the world’s most prestigious international theatres, from La Scala in Milan to the Opéra National de Paris, the Arena di Verona, the Sydney Opera House, the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. He has collaborated with conductors of the calibre of Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta and Daniel Oren. In 2017, President Mattarella appointed him Knight of the Republic in the Order of Merit, in recognition of his artistic achievements and social commitment, as demonstrated by the numerous charitable musical events in which he has taken part.

Born in Livorno, a former violinist, he turned to conducting in 2002 with a particular focus on the verismo repertoire, especially the works of Pietro Mascagni, of whom he has conducted no fewer than seven operatic titles.
A passionate lover of Italian music across all genres, in 1989 he won the highest sum ever awarded on the television quiz show Telemike, answering questions on classical, operatic and pop music.
He has composed several operas, including one dedicated to Napoli’s third league title, Scudetto in casa Paisiello, and Dodici anni dopo, a sequel to Cavalleria rusticana, already staged in Italy, Japan and Romania and adapted into a film-opera.
He dreams of conducting at the Sanremo Festival, in which he indirectly participated in 2009 by writing the lyrics for Come in ogni ora.
He recently turned to opera outreach through the entertaining storytelling format Sillabe di… lirica.
He served as General Director of the Teatro Goldoni in Livorno until 2025 and, together with Federico Stefanelli, is the co-creator of Born in the Opera.

A flamboyant figure in Italian and international arts management — visionary and volcanic. An epicurean intellectual, he abandoned singing after a very brief performing career to pursue a career as a manager, which he combined with coaching, with a particular focus on the Italian repertoire. This has led him to give masterclasses not only in Italy but across the world (Vienna, Sofia, Shanghai, Mexico City…). A Doctor Jekyll who turns into Mister Hyde when it comes to fidelity to music, which he insists must be experienced as both an ascetic and an all-encompassing ecstatic discipline: body and spirit must merge in the sole transmission of physical and spiritual emotion.

Having entered the singing school of the Opéra de Paris at the age of 17, Elizabeth Vidal has established herself as one of the most celebrated coloratura sopranos of her generation. She has performed on the world’s greatest stages — Covent Garden, Lincoln Center in New York, the Arena di Verona, the Vienna Staatsoper, and La Fenice in Venice — alongside conductors such as John Eliot Gardiner, Richard Bonynge and René Jacobs. Twice nominated for the Victoires de la Musique and proclaimed “Best Coloratura Soprano” in Italy, she is also one of the most familiar faces of the programme Prodiges on France 2, watched by 5 million viewers.
An internationally renowned pedagogue, she teaches at the Conservatoire National de Région de Nice and serves as a vocal technique consultant at the Bolshoi in Moscow. She founded the Centre d’Art Lyrique de la Méditerranée (C.A.L.M) and directs an International Singing Competition.

Conductor and General and Artistic Director of the Witold Lutosławski Chamber Philharmonic in Łomża, and Professor at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, he completed his advanced studies in Vienna and Berlin under masters including Seiji Ozawa, Kurt Masur and Claudio Abbado. A prize-winner at international competitions in Italy, Spain and Hungary, he has conducted all of Poland’s symphony orchestras and toured worldwide. One of his twenty recorded albums won the Fryderyk Prize 2019 of the Polish recording industry, with seven total nominations for that award and three for the International Classical Music Awards.
He has been awarded the Gloria Artis Medal and a Special Prize from the Polish Minister of Culture for his outstanding contribution to national musical culture. In 2014, the President of the Polish Republic conferred upon him the title of Professor of Musical Arts.