Biography

Italian conductor Carlo Benedetto Cimento is First Kapellmeister at Landestheater Salzburg since the 2023/24 season, where he conducted Il barbiere di Siviglia, Lucio Silla, Sleeping Beauty, Il viaggio a Reims, Der Freischütz and Hänsel und Gretel. His influence on the sound of the Mozarteumorchester, his holistic approach to the staging and musical proceedings, as well as his guidance of the singing ensemble, were noted and enthusiastically praised by audience and press alike. A highlight of 2025 will be the first Austrian performance of Salieri’s Il mondo alla rovescia, a rarity discovered by Cimento himself in the archives of Teatro in Legnago. From 2025 he is besides “Conductor in Residence” of KALA Chamber Orchestra.

In 2023 he debuted in his homeland conducting a Verdi Gala concert and Orpheus in the Underworld at Teatro Verdi in Trieste. He also worked there as assistant to the new musical director Enrico Calesso for I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Ariadne auf Naxos and La Cenerentola.

At ease with symphonic repertoire as well, Cimento has performed, among others, at the Wiener Musikverein, at the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg, at the Schönbrunn Schlosstheater and at the concert hall of the Beijing Music University. He has conducted orchestras such as Cappella Aquileia, ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, Norddeutsche Philharmonie, Orquesta filarmónica de Gran Canaria and Münchner Symphoniker.

His experiences in the area of historically informed performance practice have been of particular value, e.g. working as assistant to Martin Haselböck with the Wiener Akademie (Liszt Festival Raiding, Brucknerhaus Linz), to Thomas Hengelbrock with the Balthasar Neumann Choir and Ensemble (Cavalleria Rusticana in Baden-Baden) and to Christoph Meier at the “Teatro Barocco” festival in Vienna, where he conducted from the fortepiano the world premiere of Benda’s Philon and Theone, Gluck’s La corona and Haydn's L’isola disabitata. This production was nominated for the “Österreichischer Musiktheaterpreis 2019”.

Passionate about working in close contact with singers, he held the position of Italian coach of the singing classes at the HfM Würzburg and regularly takes part as juror to prestigious competitions like “Vincerò” and the “Belvedere Singing Competition”. From 2021 to 2023 he was Solorepetitor and Kapellmeister at Mainfranken Theater Würzburg and in 2020 was Repetitor at Theater Kiel.

Cimento’s early career as an organist and composer led him to being a conductor today with a fresh approach to the score but also a keen sensitivity to historical practice. He attended the improvisation class of Loïc Mallié, Olivier Messiaen’s student, at the CNSMD in Lyon, completed his organ diploma with Pier Damiano Peretti, and his conducting diploma with Johannes Wildner at MDW in Vienna, both with distinction. He also obtained a master’s degree at HMT in Munich with Marcus Bosch and Georg Fritzsch and has attended masterclasses with renowned conductors as Christian Thielemann (Bayreuther Festspiele), Daniele Gatti (Accademia Musicale Chigiana), Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Yu Feng, Karel Mark Chichon, Donato Renzetti, Michalis Economou and Nicolás Pasquet.

He is the winner of the “Ö1 Talent Börse”, a prize which honours the most talented art students in Austria, and of the “9. Max Liebhaber-Nachwuchspreis 2019” of the “Opernfestspiele Heidenheim”.