Stefano Baldasseroni

Born in Rome, Stefano Baldasseroni began studying drums at age 4, and by his late 20s had recorded and toured as a drummer with many renowned pop music artists. He moved to New York in 2010 and worked as a session drummer while also serving as an Italian diction coach for Opera Repertory Ensemble’s productions of Falstaff, Lucia di Lammermoor, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Luisa Miller, La Bohème, and Don Pasquale at the Manhattan School of Music. In 2012 he was the Italian coach for productions of Suor Angelica and Orlando at the summer program Opera Siena.

Dolora Zajick invited him in 2016 to join the faculty of her Institute for Young Dramatic Voices, where he uses his skills as a drummer to work with the singers on rhythm as well as Italian. Mr. Baldasseroni was the diction coach for Händel's Alcina at the Santa Fe Opera in 2017, and has coached the Italian for recent productions of operas at the Curtis Institute (Don Giovanni) and Rice University (La Finta Giardiniera, La Calisto) where he will coach La Clemenza di Tito in 2020. He also teaches at the Georg Solti Accademia in China and Italy. His collaborations include: Houston Grand Opera (La Bohème), Yale University (Il Primo Omicidio) and Bard College (Italian Diction Course).

In 2017, Baldasseroni joined the faculty of Juilliard where, in addition to teaching Italian diction classes, he oversaw the Italian for the productions of La Fedeltà Premiata, Agrippina, and Don Giovanni. He is on the faculty of the Curtis Institute and Manhattan School of Music.