The ROF 2023 edition

The 44th edition of the Rossini Opera Festival will be held in Pesaro from the 11th to the 23rd August 2023.  On the programme: three rarely performed works from the Rossini canon (Eduardo e Cristina, Adelaide di Borgogna and Aureliano in Palmira), the first two being new productions; two very rarely performed Cantatas  (the one not composed by Rossini for Maria Malibran and the one for Pope Pius IX, neither of them ever before performed at the ROF); the events making part of the Festival Giovane, beginning with Il viaggio a Reims; the operatic symphony concerts and the Bel Canto concerts and the concluding Petite messe solennelle.

The founding bodies of the Rossini Opera Festival are the Town Council of Pesaro, the Intesa Sanpaolo bank and the Fondazione Scavolini.  The Festival functions through the support of the Ministry of Culture, the Pesaro Town Council, the Marche Region, EBWorld, the Fondazione Meuccia Severi and it is realized in the context of Pesaro Capitale Italiana della Cultura 2024.

The Festival will be inaugurated on Friday 11th August at 8.00 p.m. at the Vitrifrigo Arena by the new production of Eduardo e Cristina, the last among the official catalogue of Rossini’s works that has not so far been produced at the Festival, which will also constitute the very first performance of the Fondazione Rossini’s new critical edition of the opera, edited by Alice Tavilla and Andrea Malnati.  The first performance will be broadcast at 9.15 on Rai5.
Jader Bignamini will conduct the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai and the Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso, while the staging is entirely entrusted to Stefano Poda, making his first appearance at the ROF; he will be responsible for the production, scenery, costumes, lighting and choreography.  The cast includes Enea Scala (Carlo), Anastasia Bartoli (Cristina), Daniela Barcellona (Eduardo), Grigory Shkarupa (Giacomo) and Matteo Roma (Atlei).  The opera, which is a drama in two acts by T.S.B., was first performed on the 24th April 1819 at the Teatro San Benedetto, Venice.  This new production will be repeated at the Festival on the 14th, 17th and 20th August.

The second opera on the programme is Aureliano in Palmira, which will be given on Saturday 12th August at 8.00 p.m. at the Vitrifrigo Arena with George Petrou conducting the Orchestra Sinfonica G. Rossini and the Chorus of the Teatro della Fortuna, this being a revival of the production devised for the ROF 2014 by Mario Martone.  The production, with scenery by Sergio Tramonti, costumes by Ursula Patzak and lighting by Pasquale Mari, won the 2015 Best Rediscovered Work prize at the International Opera Awards.  The cast of singers consists of Alexey Tatarintsev (Aureliano), Sara Blanch (Zenobia), Raffaella Lupinacci (Arsace), Marta Pluda (Publia), Sunnyboy Dladla (Oraspe), Davide Giangregorio (Licinio), Alessandro Abis (Gran Sacerdote), Elcin Adil (Un Pastore).  Aureliano in Palmira, first produced at La  Scala, Milan on the 26th December 1813, is a dramma serio per musica in two acts on a libretto by Giuseppe Felice Romani.  The production will be repeated on the 15th, 18th and 21st August.

At the Vitrifrigo Arena again, on Sunday 13th August at 8.00 p.m. the second new production will be unveiled,  Adelaide di Borgogna, conducted by Francesco Lanzillotta with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai and the Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso.  The production has been entrusted to Arnaud Bernard, he too directing at Pesaro for the first time, with scenery by Alessandro Camera, costumes by Maria Carla Ricotti and lighting by Fiammetta Baldisseri.  The cast consists of Varduhi Abrahamyan (Ottone), Olga Peretyatko (Adelaide), Riccardo Fassi (Berengario), René Barbera (Adelberto), Paola Leoci (Eurice), Valery Makarov (Iroldo) and Antonio Mandrillo (Ernesto).  The opera, which was first produced on the 27th December 1817 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, is a drama in two acts to a libretto by Giovanni Federico Schmidt.  Bernard’s staging will be seen again on the 16th, 19th and 22nd August.

Besides these three operas, the ROF 2023 programme will include, in the context of the Festival Giovane, on the 16th and 18th August at 11.00 a.m. at the Teatro Sperimentale, Il viaggio a Reims in the historic 2001 production by Emilio Sagi, rehearsed by Matteo Anselmi, with the Filarmonica Gioachino Rossini conducted by Andrea Foti, and a cast filled by the pupils of the Accademia Rossiniana “Alberto Zedda”. The opera will be streamed live in collaboration with Opera Vision (a project co-funded by the European Union).  The pupils will also be featured in the new cycle of Concerti al Museo, programmed for the mornings of the 5th, 12th, 14th, 15th, and 17th August in the Sala degli Specchi of the Museo Nazionale Rossini.

The programme of concerts, which will all take place at the Teatro Sperimentale, will begin with two authentic rarities: on the 14th August at 11.00 a.m. there will be a performance of the Cantata in morte di M. F. Malibran [Cantata on the death of Maria Malibran], a composition by contemporaries of Rossini presented in the context of the Rossinimania series, with Diego Ceretta conducting the Filarmonica Gioachino Rossini, the Chorus of the Teatro della Fortuna and a cast composed of Lyaila Alamanova, Giuliana Gianfaldoni, Shachar Lavi, Dave Moncaco, Giorgi Manoshvili and Michael Mofidian; on the 15th August at 4.00 p.m. it will be the turn of Rossini’s Cantata in onore del Sommo Pontefice Pio IX [Cantata in honour of the Pope Pius IX], for which Christopher Franklin will conduct the Filarmonica Gioachino Rossini and the Ventidio Basso Chorus.  The singers will be Pietro Adaini, Marina Monzó, Michael Mofidian and Antonio Garés.  Then there will be the operatic symphony concerts, with Rosa Feola and the Orchestra Sinfonica G. Rossini conducted by Sesto Quatrini (17th August) and Maria Kataeva and the Filarmonica Gioachino Rossini conducted by Marco Mencoboni (20th August), all at 3.30 p.m.; moreover there will be the Bel canto Concerts with Teresa Iervolino (19th August), Enea Scala (19th August) and Anastasia Bartoli (22nd August), all at 4.00 p.m.

 The 44th edition of the Festival will conclude, on the 23rd August at 8.30 p.m. at the Vitrifrigo Arena, with the Petite messe solennelle with Michele Mariotti conducting the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai and the Ventidio Basso Chorus.  The singers are Rosa Feola, Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, Dmitry Korchak and Giorgi Manoshvili.  The concert will be transmitted in video in Piazza del Popolo.

Information: 0721.3800294 - https://rossinioperafestival.vivaticket.it/