Born into a musical family in New York City, Nicola Rescigno studied with Pizzetti, Giannini and Polacco. He made his debut in 1943, conducting La traviata, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Alfredo Salmaggi’s opera company. He then toured the United States with the San Carlo Opera Company, serving as the company’s music director from 1944-1947. He then took music director posts with the Connecticut Opera and Havana Opera. He made his conducting debut with the San Francisco Opera in 1950 conducting Lily Pons in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Dorothy Kirsten in Madama Butterfly. In 1953, Rescigno co-founded the Lyric Opera of Chicago with businesswoman and amateur singer Carol Fox and businessman Lawrence V. Kelly, serving as the company’s artistic director and principal conductor from 1954 to 1956. For the company’s inaugural performance he conducted Maria Callas in her American debut in the title role of Bellini’s Norma. He went on to collaborate with the famous soprano several more times, including conducting her only stage appearances as Cio-Cio-San (Chicago, 1955) and her 1959 Carnegie Hall concert of Il Pirata. In 1957, Rescigno co-founded the Dallas Opera with Kelly after the two left Chicago following a dispute with the Lyric board. He served as artistic director and principal conductor of the Dallas Opera from 1957 to 1990. While there he conducted the U.S. debuts of such singers as Teresa Berganza, Montserrat Caballé, Plácido Domingo, Gwyneth Jones, Magda Olivero, Dame Joan Sutherland, Jon Vickers, and stage director Franco Zeffirelli. He also worked with Callas in Dallas. He presented there the American premieres of Handel’s Alcina and Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso, the latter of which starred Marilyn Horne and was the first Vivaldi opera to ever be mounted in the United States. He also conducted the world premieres of Virgil Thomson’s Fantasy in Homage to an Earlier England (1966) and Dominick Argento’s The Aspern Papers (opera) (1988).

Nicola Rescigno made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1978, conducting Don Pasquale (with Beverly Sills, in John Dexter’s production), followed by L’elisir d’amore (1980), L’italiana in Algeri (with Marilyn Horne and Rockwell Blake, 1981), and La traviata (1981–1982). He conducted at most of the major opera houses of Italy, and made guest appearances at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Royal Opera at Covent Garden, Opéra National de Paris, Vienna State Opera, Zurich Opera, and the Teatro Colón among other theaters. His close association with Maria Callas, having been one of her favourite conductors, resulted in several album recordings of operatic arias made for EMI, from 1958 to 1969. He also recorded an album of Verdi arias with Robert Weede (in 1953), excerpts from Francesca da Rimini (with Mario del Monaco and Magda Olivero, 1969), and complete sets of Tosca (with Mirella Freni, 1978) and Lucia di Lammermoor (with Edita Gruberova, 1983). Also available, on DVD, are a 1959 concert from Hamburg with Callas, and a 1981 performance of L’elisir d’amore from the Met, with Judith Blegen and Luciano Pavarotti. Nicola Rescigno was the uncle of conductor Joseph Rescigno. He died at the age of 92 in a hospital in Viterbo, Italy, while awaiting surgery on his broken femur.