I was born and raised in Italy, where I studied Art, Music and the Performing Arts at the University of Florence, and piano at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole. I then moved to the UK to complete my postgraduate studies at King’s College London. Before joining Northumbria, I was a Junior Research Fellow (St John’s College) and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow (Faculty of Music) at the University of Cambridge. I’ve also taught at Bristol, Oxford Brookes and Goldsmiths.

• opera, particularly:
  • voice/singers/singing
  • staging practices
  • touring and mobility
  • critical editing
• 19th-century musical cultures
• global and transnational histories of music
• sound studies
• Italian cultural studies

My research considers histories and technologies of operatic performance across the 19th and early 20th centuries. I’ve published articles on Verdi and Italian nation-building, operatic mobility, vocal celebrity culture, early radio, and interwar staging practices. My first monograph, Networking Operatic Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2021) explores how networks of opera production and critical discourse enabled by new transport and communication technologies shaped Italian cultural identities during the late Risorgimento. 

I’m currently working on two major projects. First, a new monograph that, by bridging opera, theatre and performance studies, reassesses early 20th-century Italian (and European) staging practices, foregrounding the creative contributions of historically marginalised figures—such as prompters, set designers/builders and prop makers—in the decades preceding the emergence of modern opera direction. Second, I am preparing a critical edition of Donizetti's Otto mesi in due ore (1827) for Ricordi. 

My interest in sonic and auditory cultures led to the establishment of the ‘Sounding (Out) 19th-Century Italy’ research network (2019-20), funded by a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award. I was also a founding member of the Leverhulme network ‘Re-imagining italianità: Opera and Musical Culture in Transnational Perspective’ (2016-19), based at UCL and with collaborators at Cambridge, Brown (USA) and Campinas (Brazil). 

I currently serve on the Advisory Board of Durham's Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies; I am a fouding member of the Northern OPera Research Network; and I lead Northumbria's university-wide Music Research Group.

Teaching

I teach a range of modules on European music (c.1750-present) from historical, critical and analytical perspectives. Recent UG options I've designed and delivered include 'Musicals: Politics, Performance and Popular Culture', 'Opera on Screen: From Silent Film to YouTube', and 'Opera in 18th- and 19th-century London'. At PGT level, I've taught modules and seminars on sound studies, voice, musical mobilities, music and the middlebrow, digital musicology, music and the environment, and research methodolodies.  

I'm always happy to discuss dissertation ideas with UG, MA and PhD students, so please feel free to get in touch.

Public engagement

I regularly write programme notes for UK and foreign opera companies (Royal Ballet and Opera, Glyndebourne Tour, Scottish Opera, Liceu Opera Barcelona), CD liner notes (Opera Rara), performance reviews (bachtrack.com) and general readership articles (Opera magazine). 

In 2025, I curated a free public exhibition, Prompters: The Unsung Heroes of Theatre and Opera, for Newcastle's Lit&Phil Library, supported by the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust.