The interview of the month

We meet Paola Pierangeli Tittarelli, President of the Amici del Rossini Opera Festival Association.

  1. Rossini was part of your family, wasn’t he?
    My grandfather Stefano Pierangeli was a conductor who graduated from the Conservatory of Pesaro. My father Wolframo, who followed him into the business as a child, inherited his passion for music: I remember that every morning at 7 o’clock he would put on opera records, and my mother would sometimes say to him: ‘Wolframo, put on some fox-trot too, please! My father later became president of the Rossini Foundation and it was thanks to him that we decided to start producing critical editions of Rossini’s operas.
  2. What was your first contact with the Festival?
    With such a childhood and youth behind me, I couldn’t help but become a great music lover. I attended the ROF from the very first edition and soon met Superintendent Gianfranco Mariotti, a man of high cultural standing and great humour. On one occasion, Mariotti suggested that I host a dinner for the festival guests at my home. Since I was a girl, I had visited artists and musicians (Renata Tebaldi, for example) because of my family’s passion for music, and the Rossini Opera Festival was another opportunity for me to cultivate these relationships. Over the years, I have organised countless events at my home in Pesaro, having a lot of fun and creating that extra touch of worldliness around the FestivaL.
  3. Could you explain what the President of the Friends of the Rossini Opera Festival does?
    I have been President since the Festival was founded and my role is to be a point of reference for the events and relationships that are created each summer. I always try to invite the many people I meet during the year to come to the Festival and make their contribution so that the ROF can grow stronger and continue its activities in the best possible way. In Pesaro I met people of absolute value such as Philippe Daverio, Natalia Aspesi, Sir Peter Moores and many others. From Daverio I remember his ability to transform a terrible evening in the rain into a theatrical event, while I remember when Peter Moores invited my husband and me to England: we went hunting and my husband astonished everyone with his skill. I often meet artists I met in Pesaro when I go to theatres: sometimes I don’t even recognise them, but they always greet me and are very affectionate with me.
  4. What is your favourite memory of your experience at the ROF?
    In 2009, for the 30th anniversary edition, the Festival honoured me at the Teatro Rossini for my commitment to the event. Mariotti called me and said: ‘Paola, come to the theatre tomorrow, there is an event I want you to attend. When I arrived, I saw all my friends in the auditorium, the audience was full, and then they called me on stage and gave me a bust of Rossini, specially made by the technicians of the Festival. I was moved with joy and I keep this bust in my room because I cherish it so much.

Published in : 22 December 2024