The humanoid robot YuMi will conduct the Lucca Philharmonic in an operatic highlights concert in Pisa.

Humanoid robot YuMi will conduct the Lucca Philharmonic in Tuscany on September 12, performing a concert of opera highlights with Andrea Bocelli, the UK’s Telegraph has reported. The concert, which will be the climax of a gala for the end of the International Festival of Robotics in Pisa, will feature the Italian tenor singing La donna è mobile from Rigoletto while soprano Maria Luigia Borsis will perform O mio babbino caro from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. The robot will also conduct a passage from the famous Intermezzo of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana.

^{Swiss robot YuMi. Photo © ABB}

Maestro YuMi was built by Swiss company ABB and is being touted as the closest a robot has come to mastering the nuances of a human conductor. “The Robotics Festival will have the prestige of hosting the first automaton in the world which, with two hands and movements of rare similarity to human ones, will execute three of the most famous and respected excerpts of operatic repertoire,” Italian news outlet Il Fatto Quotidiano...