Sarasota Opera Welcomes New Artistic Administrator, Marco Nisticò

SARASOTA, FL — Marco Nisticò joins the Sarasota Opera team as artistic administrator starting Dec. 1. The position had previously been held by the recently deceased Greg Trupiano, who had worked for Sarasota Opera since 1987. He died suddenly in February.

Since 2019, Nisticò has been the general director of Opera on the James in Lynchburg, Virginia. He is also well-versed with the workings of the Sarasota Opera, having first joined the company in 2008 as a principal artist, singing the role of Francesco Foscari in Verdi’s “I due Foscari.”

With Sarasota Opera he has also performed principal roles in “The Barber of Seville” (2008, 2014), “Don Carlos” (2009, 2015), “La Traviata” (2009, 2017), “Giovanna d’Arco” (2010), “Madame Butterfly” (2011), “Rigoletto” (2012, 2019), “Pagliacci” (2014), “Aida”(2016), “Don Pasquale” (2016), “The Love of Three Kings” (2017), “Susanna’s Secret (2019) and “Rita” (2019).

Most recently, he was stage director of Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love,” performed during the 2020 Winter Opera Festival.

Born in Naples, Italy, Nisticò’s singing career as a baritone has taken him to theaters around the world, with performances for the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, the Caramoor Festival, and Chautauqua Opera Festival in New York, the Teatro dell’ Opera, Teatro Regio di Parma, and Teatro di San Carlo in Italy, Landestheater Bregenz in Austria, Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland, Opera de Monte-Carlo and Théâtre du Châtelet in France, West Australian Opera, and many others.

He added stage direction to his career path in 2018, directing “Tosca” for Opera Southwest, and has provided stage direction for the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and the Savannah Voice Festival.

The performer and stage director is "honored to return to Sarasota Opera" as artistic administrator, he said. "I believe deeply in the company and in the artistic staff led by Maestro DeRenzi, and its core artistic values. Sarasota Opera brings great music and great performances to the wonderful Sarasota community and beyond. Of course, no one can replace the much-loved late Greg Trupiano, the company’s previous artistic administrator of 30 years, whom I was privileged to work with closely for many seasons. His are impossibly big shoes to fill. But I will do my best for the company and its audience."