Up and coming Italian tenor Gianluca Terranova is rapidly becoming one of the most sought after interpreters of the lyric tenor repertoire with his ease in the high register and great stage presence. He just recently had great personal success on the occasion of his Teatro alla Scala debut in Milan as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto under the baton of James Conlon, with whom the tenor will also appear as the Duke at LA Opera for his American debut in November/December 2010.

Born in Rome, Terranova graduated with a degree in piano and was involved in a variety of activities in musical theater and TV as an interpreter, composer and arranger. During this time he made his professional debut in Il Barbiere di Siviglia in Rome, and was also heard in Falstaff, Madama Butterfly, Nabucco, Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Mavra, Il Pirata and Gina by Cilea.

2008 began with performances of Un Ballo in Maschera at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and La Rondine at the Teatro Verdi di Trieste, and in August of that year the tenor attracted much international attention when he replaced an ill colleague at the last minute to make his debut as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto at the Arena di Verona, conducted by Renato Palumbo. His great critical success lead him to be considered as one of the great interpreters of the role of the Duke of Mantua today.

In October 2008, the artist appeared as Rodolfo in La Bohème at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and was consequently invited by Zubin Mehta to participate in a special concert of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the Maggio Musicale in front of an audience of 8,000. In February 2009 he appeared as Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, a role in which he would also make his debut at the Frankfurt Opera the following May. He has also been heard as Alfredo in La Traviata at the Filarmonico di Verona and at La Fenice in Venice conducted by Myung Wung Chung and Rodolfo at the Puccini Festival Torre del Lago and at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna; the Duke in Rigoletto in Florence, Tonio in La Fille du Régiment in Trieste and in Como, Bergamo, Brescia (where he sang a new critical edition in Italian of Donizetti's opera) and celebrated a personal triumph with his encore of the famous aria "Pour mon ame."

Engagements for 2010 include La Bohème in Palermo and Torino, La Traviata in Naples, Lucia di Lammermoor at the Opera Festival Avenches in Switzerland, and his debut at the Rome Opera House with Roberto Devereux in September.