The titles of 2023

On the eve of the 43rd edition of the Rossini Opera Festival, the titles of the 2023 Festival were announced. The program features the first modern performance in the critical edition of the Fondazione Rossini by Eduardo e Cristina, directed by Jader Bignamini and staged by Stefano Poda. At his side is another new production, Adelaide di Borgogna, directed by Francesco Lanzillotta and staged by Arnaud Bernard, as well as the revival of Aureliano in Palmira, directed by George Petrou directed by Mario Martone. Among the concerts, the Petite messe solennelle conducted by Michele Mariotti will be proposed.

As for this year, the upcoming ROF will be held in Pesaro from the 9th to the 21st August 2022. The programme offers two new productions (Le Comte Ory and Otello), the revival of La Gazzetta, the revival of Il viaggio a Reims by the Accademia Rossiniana “Alberto Zedda”, four Opera Concerts with Orchestra, two Belcanto Concerts, the return of Rossinimania and a Gala Concert celebrating the 40 years of Pier Luigi Pizzi at the ROF.  Pupils of the Accademia Rossiniana, which is subsidised this year by the Fondazione Meuccia Severi, will furthermore be featured in the Concerti al Museo at the Museo Nazionale Rossini.

The Founding Bodies of the ROF are the Town Council of Pesaro, the Intesa Sanpaolo bank and the Fondazione Scavolini.  The Festival is conducted under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture, the Pesaro Town Council, the Regione Marche, EBWorld and the Fondazione Meuccia Severi.

The Festival will be inaugurated on Tuesday the 9th August at the Vitrifrigo Arena with Le Comte Ory. The cast consists of Juan Diego Flórez, Nahuel Di Pierro, Maria Kataeva, Andrzej Filonczyk, Julie Fuchs, Monica Bacelli and Anna-Doris Capitelli, with the Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai.  The Opera will be conducted by  Diego Matheuz.  The production, together with the scenery and costumes, is by Hugo De Ana, the lighting by Valerio Alfieri.  This is a co-production with the Teatro Comunale, Bologna. The three repeat performances are on the 12th, 16th and 19th August.

This will be followed on the 10th August by the first night of La Gazzetta at the Teatro Rossini, with Carlo Lepore, Maria Grazia Schiavo, Giorgio Caoduro, Martoniana Antonie, Alejandro Baliñas, Pietro Adaini, Andrea Niño and Pablo Gálvez, with the Chorus of the Teatro della Fortuna and the Orchestra Sinfonica G. Rossini.  The opera will be conducted by Carlo Rizzi.  The production, which was extremely successful at the ROF 2015, was devised by Marco Carniti, with scenery by Manuela Gasperoni, costumes by Maria Filippi and lighting by Fabio Rossi.  There will be repeat performances on the 13th, 15th and 18th August.

Back to the Vitrifrigo Arena again on the 11th August for Otello, with Enea Scala, Eleonora Buratto, Evgeny Stavinsky, Dmitry Korchak, Antonino Siragusa, Adriana Di Paola, Julian Henao Gonzales and Antonio Garés.  The Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai will be conducted by Yves Abel.  The production is by Rosetta Cucchi, with scenery by Tiziano Santi, costumes by Ursula Patzak and lighting by Daniele Naldi.  There will be repeat performances on the 14th, 17th and 20th August.

The pupils of the 34th Accademia Rossiniana “Alberto Zedda”, which was held from the 4th to the 18th July at the Teatro Sperimentale, were featured in the new concert series Salons Rossini, three concerts in historic old towns in the province of Pesaro (San Lorenzo in Campo, Gradara and San Costanzo).  As in every year, these young singers will also perform in Il viaggio a Reims on the 13th and 15th August at the Teatro Rossini.  The production is the one created in 2001 by Emilio Sagi and rehearsed by Matteo Anselmi, with Daniel Carter conducting the Filarmonica Gioachino Rossini.  The pupils will also be featured in the Concerti al Museo, which will be given at the Museo Nazionale Rossini on the 5th, 12th, 14th  and 16th August.

There will be a tightly-packed programme of concerts, with six evenings planned at the Teatro Rossini.  To begin with, four Orchestral Operatic Concerts: on the 12th August Lorenzo Passerini will conduct the Filarmonica Gioachino Rossini, the Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso and the soprano Pretty Yende; on the 14th August Vitali Alekseenok will conduct the Orchestra Sinfonica G. Rossini, the Chorus of the Teatro della Fortuna, the soprano Giuliana Gianfaldoni and the mezzosoprano Vasilisa Berzhanskaya; on the 17th August Fabrizio Ruggero will conduct the Filarmonica G. Rossini, the Chorus of the Teatro della Fortuna and the bass Nahuel Di Pierro in a programme including Edipo a Colono and three unpublished Sinfonie; on the 18th August Daniel Smith will conduct the Filarmonica Gioachino Rossini, the Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso  with the soprano Angela Meade.  The two Concerti di belcanto will be sung by Sonia Prina (16th August), with Paolo Spadaro Munitto at the pianoforte, and by Barbara Frittoli (20th August) with Mzia Bakhtouridze at the pianoforte.

The Rossinimania event is back at the Festival: on the 19th August the Teatro Rossini will be the scene of the first performance of Il sogno dell’orso, a musical entertainment devised by Sergio Ragni, with the participation of the actors Matteo Anselmi (who is also the producer) and Ernesto Lama, and the singers Andrea Niño, Matteo Roma and Giorgi Manoshvili.  At the pianoforte Rubén Sánchez Vicco.

The ROF 2022 will close on Sunday 21st August at the Vitrifrigo Arena with Tra rondò e tournedos, a Gala to celebrate Pier Luigi Pizzi’s 40 years at the ROF.  Pizzi will be seen talking onstage with Luigi Ferrari in a staging by Massimo Gasparon.  Diego Matheuz will conduct the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, the Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso and a cast consisting of Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, Eleonora Buratto, Maria Laura Iacobellis, Aya Wakizono, Giorgio Caoduro, Nahuel Di Pierro, Dmitry Korchak, Giorgi Manoshvili and Matteo Roma.  The performance will be projected live in video in Piazza del Popolo in collaboration with the Pesaro Town Council.

During the Festival, from the 6th to the 21st August in the Sala Laurana of the Palazzo Ducale (opening hours: 10.00-13.00 a.m.; 16.00-19.00 p.m.) an exhibition will be open to the public, entitled ROF15K. La libertà dello sguardo dell’immaginario visivo rossiniano, celebrating the first 15.000 days in the life of the ROF by means of 24 set models for some of the principal operas.

Supervised by Cristian Della Chiara upon a staging project by Bruno Mariotti, CH+, with a contribution from the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Pesaro, the exhibition has been realized by the ROF laboratories together with Sistema Museo and, for the multi-media part, by Marco Rossetti, Imergo. The staging and the video productions are entrusted to Alberto Giuliani, the photographs are by the Studio Amati Bacciardi.

Programma ROF 2022