Born in Naples, he studied singing with bass-baritone Sesto Bruscantini in parallel with his school and then university education.

After winning numerous singing competitions, including the Teatro lirico sperimentale Adriano Belli in Spoleto, he began his career in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century dramma giocoso and in opera buffa, of which he was immediately an ideal interpreter thanks to his scenic predisposition and ductile vocality.

He has taken part in the most important productions of opera buffa that have been staged in recent years: compositions by Salieri, Haydn, Galuppi, Pergolesi, Paisiello, Tritto and Cimarosa (of whom he is the performer of nine roles) form the initial nucleus of his vast repertoire. He has taken up several little-performed 18th-century compositions, including Pergolesi’s Lo frate ‘nnamorato (Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1990). However, it is mainly around Rossini and Donizetti that Bruno de Simone has been able to build his international career: Don Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola, Taddeo in L’italiana in Algeri, Raimbaud in Le Comte Ory, Pacuvio in La pietra del paragone, Isidoro in Matilde di Shabran, Germano in La scala di seta, Don Pasquale and Malatesta, Marchese Boifleuri in La Linda di Chamounix, Dulcamara and Belcore in L’Elisir d’Amore.

He also took part in the operas of the Da Ponte-Mozart trilogy – Le Nozze di Figaro (Figaro and Conte), Così fan tutte (Don Alfonso) and in Don Giovanni (Leporello, in which he was the first performer at the Arena di Verona in the 2012 season) – and, thanks to his versatility, he has extended his repertoire to Verdi (Fra’ Melitone in La forza del destino, Falstaff and Ford), Puccini (Gianni Schicchi, Lescaut in Manon Lescaut, Marcello and Schaunard), Mascagni (Kyoto in Iris), Cilea (Michonnet in Adriana Lecouvreur) and Wolf-Ferrari (Il segreto di Susanna and Le donne curiose). During his career he has performed in numerous theatres, festivals and opera foundations in Italy – Teatro alla Scala, Arena di Verona, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, San Carlo di Napoli, Opera di Roma, La Fenice di Venezia, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Teatro Regio di Parma, Teatro Regio di Torino, Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova, as well as the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Ravenna Festival and the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro – and abroad – Barcelona (Liceu), Paris (Opéra), Berlin (Staatsoper and Deutsche Oper), Vienna (Staatsoper), Zurich, Munich, San Francisco, Washington, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Madrid (Teatro Real), Seville, A Coruсa, Bilbao (ABAO), Liège, Geneva.

Conductors with whom he has collaborated include Roberto Abbado, Bruno Campanella, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti, J. Lopez Cobos, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti and Daniel Oren. Among the directors: G. Cobelli, H. De Ana, Mario Martone, Luca Ronconi, Pier Luigi Pizzi, E. Sagi, Tony Servillo and Franco Zeffirelli.