Founded at the end of the 19th century and re-established in 1945 after the Second World War, the Chorus of the Teatro Regio is one of the major opera choruses in Europe. Under the direction of Maestro Bruno Casoni (1994-2002) it reached an international peak, as demonstrated by the performance of Verdi’s Otello with Claudio Abbado conducting, and by the esteem expressed by Semyon Bychkov who, after conducting it in 2002 in the B-minor Mass by Bach, invited it to Cologne to record Verdi’s Requiem and returned in 2012 for a concert of Brahms’ music with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra.
The Chorus was later directed by Maestro Roberto Gabbiani, who fostered its artistic development even further, and in November 2010 Claudio Fenoglio was nominated to the position.
Besides the opera season, the Chorus also has important concert commitments and numerous recordings, including the recent Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky and the Quattro pezzi sacri by Verdi and Magnificat – Salmo IX di Petrassi with the Orchestra of the Teatro Regio conducted by Gianandrea Noseda.
In summer 2010 the Chorus took part in the Teatro Regio’s tour in China and Japan, with two productions of La Bohème and one of La Traviata, besides numerous opera-symphonic concerts, followed by a Verdi tour in May 2011. The production of Don Carlo in April 2013 was immediately repeated with great success at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.