The Orchestra of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma was founded in 1880 together with the Teatro Costanzi. It has performed in the premieres of Cavalleria Rusticana, L’amico Fritz, Iris and Tosca, in the first years of the last century the orchestra included musicians such as Pietro Mascagni, Igor Stravinskij and Riccardo Zandonai.

In 1928 with the transformation of the Costanzi into the Teatro Reale dell’Opera di Roma, the Orchestra received an extraordinary qualitative boost with the conduction of Gino Marinuzzi, Tullio Serafin and Gabriele Santini. Among the works was the unforgettable Italian premiere of Wozzeck by Alban Berg in 1942, conducted by Tullio Serafin,.

In more recent times the role of conductor has been held by Bruno Bartoletti and Gianluigi Gelmetti. Among the conductors who, over the years, have collaborated with the Orchestra of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma should be remembered Arturo Toscanini, Victor de Sabata, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Herbert von Karajan, Carlo Maria Giulini, Zubin Mehta, Leonard Bernstein, Georges Pretre, Georg Solti, Thomas Schippers, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Jeffrey Tate and more recently, Riccardo Muti.