Robert Mollicone

Sought after for his finely-calibrated leadership and sensitive performances, conductor, recitalist, and coach Robert Mollicone has become a familiar face in opera houses across the US and Europe. As a member of San Francisco Opera’s music staff, he has acted in capacities including assistant to the music director, assistant conductor, prompter, and coach/pianist, and has worked on more than 40 productions spanning the breadth of the repertoire, including Rusalka, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Les Troyens, and Don Carlo. Equally committed to the development of the American operatic canon, he has helped bring several new operas by composers such as Jake Heggie, Tobias Picker, and John Adams to life.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, he has conducted performances with Opera San Jose (Where Angels Fear to Tread, Silent Night), San Francisco Opera (Opera in the Park 2014/2019, Christmas with Sol3 Mio), and West Edge Opera (Elizabeth Cree). He made a house debut at Festival Opera conducting Carmen in August 2023.

Other recent debuts include Florentine Opera (L’enfant et les sortilèges) and Austin Opera (Ariadne auf Naxos) and additionally as cover conductor for the European premiere of John Adams’ Girls of the Golden West at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam and for La Damnation de Faust with the St. Louis Symphony under Stéphane Denève.

Mollicone also performs regularly in recital with vocal artists including Denyce Graves, Joyce El-Khoury, Brian Jagde, Ailyn Pérez, Nicholas Phan, and Jamie Barton. He made his Carnegie Hall debut alongside soprano Melody Moore in May 2016.

As a vocal coach, Mollicone enjoys working relationships across the spectrum of classical vocal arts, including with renowned artists such as Amina Edris, Pene Pati, Dolora Zajick, Heidi Stober, Nina Stemme, and Frederica von Stade. He is also regularly engaged to train emerging artists as a faculty member of the Adler Fellowship and Boston Wagner Institute, and is a regular guest coach at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

He is a graduate of San Francisco Opera’s Adler Fellowship, as well as of the Cafritz Young Artist Program at Washington National Opera. He holds a master’s degree in music from Boston University, where he studied with Shiela Kibbe.