Throughout his musical life, Roberto’s German-Italian roots have enabled him to span two worlds. His Sicilian heritage led him as a student to the popular Italian bel canto tradition. Television viewers of the late 1980s may remember his inspiring renditions of Italian folksongs in the style of Mario Lanza. Later student years were influenced by the exploration of his German side. His teacher of the time, Aldo Baldin, introduced him to the Passions and Cantatas of J.S. Bach, thereby laying the musical foundations for a career as an opera and concert singer.

As his voice developed further, he began a fruitful collaboration with Alexander Pereira and Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Zurich. His big break internationally came in 1995 with Joseph Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo opposite Cecilia Bartoli. In the following years Zurich Opera became the heart of his artistic activities, where he performed in productions such as Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Il barbiere di Siviglia and later in his career adding also more dramatic parts such as Florestan (Fidelio), Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos), Kaiser (Die Frau ohne Schatten), Manolios (Greek Passion) and Stolzing (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg).

Guest engagements led him a.o. to the Metropolitan Opera (Matteo in Arabella), San Francisco Opera (L’elisir d’amore, The Magic Flute), Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Bacchus, title role in Prokofiev’s The Gambler), Deutsche Oper Berlin (Lohengrin, Don José, Leukippos in Daphne), Staatsoper Berlin (Bacchus, title role in La Clemenza di Tito), Bayerische Staatsoper München (Belmonte, Palestrina), Staatsoper Hamburg (the Demon in Henze’s L’upupa, Lohengrin, Kaiser, and Bacchus), Frankfurt Opera (Bacchus, Otello), Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf (title role in Peter Grimes, La Scala di Milano (Tambourmajor in Wozzeck, Aegisth in Elektra), La Fenice in Venice (Alfredo in La Traviata), Teatro Regio in Turin (Belmonte, Duca), Teatro Real Madrid (Tito), Liceu Barcelona (Idomeneo), Grand Théâtre de Genève (Belmonte), National Opera in Amsterdam (Stolzing), Théâtre de la Monnaie Brussels (Paul in Die Tote Stadt), De Vlaamse Opera Antwerp/Ghent (Éléazar in La Juive), New National Theatre Tokyo (Alfredo), the Bayreuth Festival (Loge), Salzburg Festival (title role in Lucio Silla, Stolzing) and the Bregenz Festival (Walter in the staged world premiere of Weinberg’s The Passenger).

Beyond the Opera Roberto Saccà is also in great demand on the concert platform. To name but a few engagements: Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust, Haydn’s Creation, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis in the Basilica of Santa Cecilia in Rome, Verdi’s Requiem in Moscow, and performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Oviedo in Zurich, in Vienna, London, and with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

He has worked with conductors such as Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Daniele Gatti, Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Christopher Hogwood, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Ingo Metzmacher, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Georges Prêtre, Christian Thielemann, Adam Fischer, Franz Welser-Möst, Christoph von Dohnányi, Bernard Haitink to name but a few.