DUBBED the Italian Whizz, Gianluca Marciano returns to Grange Park Opera for the fourth consecutive year, reuniting with soprano Claire Rutter for Verdi’s opera La Traviata, followed by Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades.

The conductor of choice for Italian operatic repertoire, he opens an English summer season in the Hampshire countryside at Alresford on Saturday.

Marciano conducts La Traviata until July 5, followed by Queen of Spades from July 6 to 12. He reunites with leading British soprano Claire Rutter who takes the role of Verdi’s tragic heroine Violetta in La Traviata, in a sumptuous production directed by Lindsay Posner with designs from Richard Hudson.

Marciano conducts the BBC Concert Orchestra in nine performances of La Traviata, with a cast that includes Damiano Salerno, Marco Panuccio and Olivia Ray. This is followed by a revival of Anthony McDonald’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades, directed by Peter Relton, with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Carl Tanner as Herman, Giselle Allen as Lisa, and Gocha Abuladze as Tomsky.

Marciano maintains a strong association with Grange Park Opera, bringing iconic Italian operas to the Hampshire countryside.

He said: “I have had the pleasure of conducting Italian opera at Grange Park since 2010. It started with Puccini’s Tosca with the wonderful soprano Claire Rutter and now our collaborations are an annual fixture every summer – Madam Butterfly in 2012, Bellini’s last opera I Puritani in 2013, and this year La Traviata. It is a great joy for me to conduct Verdi’s opera, and I am thrilled to be following this with Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades.”