Celebratory program with two masterpieces: Roberto Devereux and Don Pasquale
Zoraida di Granata is the rarity for #donizetti200
LU OpeRave returns, the thematic meetings, presentations, open rehearsals, and activities for schools and families
The playbills feature the names of great performers such as Javier Camarena, Roberto de Candia, Cecilia Molinari, John Osborn, and Jessica Pratt along with other established younger performers and students of the Bottega Donizetti
On the podium Riccardo Frizza, Iván López-Reynoso and Alberto Zanardi
The directors are Stephen Langridge, Amélie Niermeyer, Bruno Ravella and Mattia Agatiello
In Bergamo, activities begin Oct. 25 in anticipation of opera weekends
from Nov. 14 to Dec. 1
2015-2024: Less than a month to go until the tenth edition of the Donizetti Opera festival, a major international event dedicated to the Bergamasque composer and organized by the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti chaired by Giorgio Berta with the general direction of Massimo Boffelli, the artistic direction of Francesco Micheli and the musical direction of Riccardo Frizza.
The music program will take place in Bergamo “City of Gaetano Donizetti” from Nov. 14 to Dec. 1, 2024, but as early as Oct. 25 there are numerous activities planned for the public: meetings, lectures and open rehearsals.
“We are approaching the debut of Donizetti Opera 2024 with a lot of really encouraging data,” says Donizetti Theatre Foundation President Giorgio Berta, “Once again this year’s fundraising from sponsors and donors has been beyond significant and highly satisfying, standing at 1,300,000 euros to date for the entire Foundation. We confirmed the main partnerships but also recorded important new memberships. We launched a new project that links the number of Donizetti Ambassadors to the 73 works in the Donizetti catalog, and to date we have matched 50 Ambassadors to as many titles. Reservations and ticket sales at the moment are also up from last year, demonstrating that the balance found by artistic director Francesco Micheli between research and repertoire is winning. Finally, the foreign press is also increasingly interested in reporting and documenting Donizetti Opera’s programming-a further confirmation of the festival’s internationality.” “Donizetti Opera,” says Bergamo’s Culture Councillor Sergio Gandi, “will stage Gaetano Donizetti’s titles within a proposal linked to contemporaneity that will also address current political issues, as has already happened in recent editions. This has contributed over time to making a “star” out of an author who was almost unknown to the city. In general, this articulated and so organized programming has given the festival and therefore also the whole city an international profile, as shown by the data already in our possession, which mark 87 percent of foreigners in group bookings. All this leads us to be able to consider Donizetti Opera a pillar of Bergamo’s identity: this edition celebrating ten editions proves this in a special way.” “This is the tenth edition of Donizetti Opera,” stresses artistic director Francesco Micheli, “the tenth year in which we have been working on the construction of a monument to this artist whose greatness has yet to be explored, a monument of which we are proud, and grateful, to have been able to build the first piece. We have tried, on the one hand, to go back to the source of the man and the artist, offering his works, both those that are best known and those that are less so, in editions that are philologically unimpeachable and consistent with the performance practice of the time. On the other, we wanted to combine Donizetti’s revolutionary theatricality with the present, convinced that no theater is as contemporary, vital and necessary as his. The goal is always the same, today as ten years ago: to popularize Donizetti’s opera, and to spread the beneficial contagion of our love for him in Bergamo, in Italy and throughout the world.” The 2024 edition of the Donizetti Opera festival is therefore celebratory, with the weekends “beginning” on Thursday. It will be revived at the Balzer Globe LU OpeRave (Thursday, Nov. 14, Thursday 21 and Friday, Nov. 29), the 2023 creation inspired by the most famous of Donizetti’s operas signed by director and choreographer Mattia Agatiello with creative direction by Stefano Libertini Protopapa.
Two masterpieces by Gaetano Donizetti will be staged at Teatro Donizetti: Roberto Devereux (Friday, November 15, Saturday, 23 and Thursday, November 28) and Don Pasquale (Sunday, Nov. 17, Friday, Nov. 22 and Saturday, Nov. 30) entrusted respectively to festival music director Riccardo Frizza and English director Stephen Langridge with the Elizabethan drama and to director Amélie Niemeyer and the baton of young Mexican Iván López-Reynoso with the last great comedy of his maturity. In its modern premiere at the Teatro Sociale, the “Roma 1824” version of Zoraida by Granata (Saturday, Nov. 16, Sunday, Nov. 24, Sunday, Dec. 1) for the #donizetti200 cycle with Alberto Zanardi on the podium.
Contributing to the weekend’s festival atmosphere are the Casa e Bottega concerts: on Sunday, Nov. 17 at 11 a.m., Donizetti’s Birthplace in the Upper Town will host the first of three scheduled concerts, featuring Massimo Spadano, first violin of the Donizetti Opera Orchestra, and Francesco Libetta, a pianist and celebrated virtuoso, who will present some of the Bergamasque’s pages for violin and piano as a preview of their new digital release for Sony Music due out in 2025. On the next two Sundays, Nov. 24 and Dec. 1, also at 11 a.m., concerts by students of the Bottega Donizetti accompanied on piano by Hana Lee, engaged in pieces from the works of the home composer. As is well known, the activities of the Bottega Donizetti are supported by the Rotary Club Terra di San Marco through the sale during the festival of the Torta del Donizèt in the special celebratory collector’s package and the making of the cake, entrusted by the Balzer, La Marianna and Morlacchi confectioneries. Ample space during the festival for Education and Opera Family activities. For the first time, the participatory opera designed for primary and secondary school students will be staged at Teatro Donizetti (not at Sociale as in past years) and will be
Don Pasquale. The great game of love , scheduled for Nov. 22, 25 and 26 in the morning (double performance at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.; on the 26th at 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.); author of the dramaturgy and director is Manuel Renga, an expert in musical performances for children and young people, while the musical direction is by Aram Khacheh with the Donizetti Opera Ensemble and pianist Marco Regazzi. Sunday, Nov. 24, 4 p.m, Don Pasquale. The great game of love will be open to families, who at 2:30 p.m. can also participate in a preparation workshop. The latter is one of three Donizetti Opera Family events that will kick off on Sunday, Nov. 17 in Città Alta with a Donizetti treasure hunt titled Il Gufo Investigatore (Birthplace, from 2 to 4 p.m.) and then completes, Saturday, Nov. 30 (Donizetti Theater 3:30 p.m.) with Tano di Lammermoor a show with the Burattini Cortesi on dramaturgy and direction by Manuel Renga and Simone Dini Gandini and singers Leonardo Moroni, Roberto Dibitonto, Francesca Longa. Donizetti Education activities also include the three Under30 previews scheduled for Nov. 12, 13 and 14 at 5 p.m. dedicated to high schools and universities. Of particular importance in this regard is the festival’s close media partnership with UniBG OnAir, the radio station of the University of Bergamo. Scheduled around the opera titles are some moments of reflection and in-depth analysis. Thus, the long-awaited Donizetti Talks curated by the festival’s Scientific Area are back, with the participation of the directors and conductors of the operas and access to the rehearsals. The first meeting on Friday, Nov. 8 (Donizetti Theater, Riccardi Hall, 5:30 p.m.) is for Roberto Devereux with Livio Aragona and Maurizio Merisio; then on Saturday, Nov. 9 (5 p.m.) at the Mai Library and then at the Teatro Sociale, it will be dedicated to Zoraida di Granata and will feature speakers Edoardo Cavalli and Paolo Fabbri. It continues on Sunday, Nov. 10 (5 p.m.) in the Riccardi Room of the Donizetti Theater with Candida Billie Mantica and Livio Aragona for Don Pasquale. All these meetings are free admission with reservations recommended at gaetanodonizetti.org Another series of meetings is on Mondays in November (Teatro Donizetti, Sala Riccardi, 6 p.m.), titled Donizetti Today, in which experts and professionals from non-musical fields and other city institutions reflect and discuss some of the issues that substantiate the events in the librettos of the scheduled Donizetti operas.
In detail on Monday, November 4, Don Giuliano Zanchi, Francesco Mazzucotelli and Andrea Valesini will converse on The Enigma of Peace. Necessary aspiration, inevitable conflict related to Zoraida di Granata; on Monday, Nov. 11, Alberto Mattioli and Marco Ubezio on Tutti pazzi per i Royals creating a connection between Donizetti’s passion for “the Tudori” and the current ruling family in Great Britain; finally, on Monday, Nov. 18, psychiatrist Filippo Tancredi with Albert Mattioli, taking a cue from Don Pasquale, converse on Desiderio senza età. All meetings are free admission with reservations recommended at gaetanodonizetti.org They talk about libraries and books with Donizetti Bookmarks (Donizetti Theater, Music Room, 6 p.m.); Saturday, Nov. 23 C’è posta per Mai: una nuova lettera di Donizetti alla Biblioteca Civica with Paolo Fabbri and Fabrizio Capitanio about a new acquisition of the “Angelo Mai” Library; then Saturday, Nov. 30, Emilio Sala’s new book Opera, neutro plurale (il Saggiatore) is presented. These meetings are also free admission with reservations recommended at gaetanodonizetti.org Friday, Nov. 29 Gaetano Donizetti’sDies natalis will be the highlight of the festival’s 10-year anniversary celebrations. In fact, there will be D come Dieci, the second day of the initiatives planned to celebrate the milestone, going over the milestones of Donizetti Opera with the public and the city, to remember and comment on the most beloved and important productions that have made it possible to discover new aspects and new treasures of the art of the orobic composer.
It will once again be possible to visit the Donizetti Theater (from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.), while in the Upper Town is scheduled (11:15 a.m.) the traditional Musical Elevation in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and the tribute to the memorials of Donizetti and Mayr; students also (10:30 a.m.) will be involved in a flash mob in Piazza Vecchia to remember both Donizetti and Giacomo Puccini, whose death centenary falls on the same day. It’s back to the Donizetti Theater (2:30 p.m.) for DeCineForum with the presentation and screening of the opera La Favorite staged in 2021 and recognized by the National Association of Music Critics with the Abbiati Prize for the best performance of the year. At the Donizetti Studio (6 p.m.) there will be a new singing workshop for youngsters who will perform at 7:30 p.m. in front of the theater, while in the Riccardi Hall at 7 p.m. the following returns A Donizetti is forever, a conversation and aperitif between music and precious thanks to another of the festival’s historic Ambassadors, Curnis Gioielli, who will bring Roberto Coin’s creations to the theater. Already highly anticipated (8 p.m., free admission) is the special, live edition of Citofonare Gaetano, Amarcord, the format created to comment on the operas in the covid period through the web: for this special edition Francesco Micheli, Ricardo Frizza and Alberto Mattioli will gather on the Donizetti stage some of the artists who have marked the ten years of the festival and will preview excerpts of the first opera that left its mark in the recent Donizettian interpretation, namely Anna Bolena in the 2015 edition. Final night at the Balzer Globe where there will be a scheduled repeat of LU OpeRave (9:30 p.m.). Dies natalis activities are realized with the support of Stucchi S.p.A. From the next few days to closely tell about the festival, the Donizetti Social Club – WhatsApp community to know everything that happens around Gaetano with special attention to the festival (news, backstage, previews, etc.) will be more and more information. Some popular video series such as “At rehearsals with Mattioli” – introductions to the operas recorded this year in the Birthplace -, “Talk to Gaetano” with artists “confessing” in front of Donizetti’s statue, and the new “Talk to Gaetano City Edition” with Bergamasque people talking with the composer, as well as “Children tell you about the operas,” exceptional young storytellers tell about the characters and plots of the 2024 festival, will soon be available on Donizetti Opera Tube .
Donizetti Opera 2024 operas
LU OpeRave
The inaugural 2024 week of the Donizetti Opera festival-already the 2019 winner of the “Oper! Award” as best European festival by German critics and with four nominations for the International Opera Award also as best festival of the year – opens at the Balzer Globe with the reprise of one of the most innovative and popular projects during these ten editions of the festival: LU OpeRave (Thursday, Nov. 14, Thursday, Nov. 21 and Friday, Nov. 29) in which Donizetti’s music meets electronics and new trends; from the title, the reference to Lucia di Lammermoor, from which the authors of this experimental project were inspired. At the origin of LU OpeRave are Mixopera vol. 1 and vol. 2, EPs of electronic music inspired by Donizetti’s music and made by some of the most important European electronic musicians gathered around the Fluidostudio label, available on all streaming platforms (Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, YouTube Music). EP artists involved in LU OpeRave include Stefano Libertini Protopapa (creative director of the project), ilromantico, H.E.R. authors of the music. The libretto is by Love Maniacs. Direction and choreography are by Mattia Agatiello, who brings to the stage his award-winning and celebrated Fattoria Vittadini dance company based in Milan at the Fabbrica del Vapore. Sets and costumes are by Andrea Cammarosano and Leonardo Persico. The performers come from diverse musical backgrounds and experiences – soprano Laura Ulloa (a Bottega alumna in 2021), renowned vocalist David Blank and performer M¥SS KETA as narrator – and represent a fusion designed to speak to audiences of all generations, confirming the innovative and revolutionary power of Donizetti’s poetics.
Two absolute masterpieces at the Donizetti Theatre
Roberto Devereux (1837) to a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano and Don Pasquale (1843) to a libretto by Giovanni Ruffini are two of Donizetti’s best-known and best-loved titles being staged for the first time at the festival this year; for both, reference will be made to theNational Edition produced by Casa Ricordi in collaboration with and with the contribution of the City of Bergamo and the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti. For Roberto Devereux it will be the one edited by Julia Lockhart and published in 2022, while for Don Pasquale it will be a true premiere, edited by Roger Parker and Gabriele Dotto, whose official release is scheduled for 2026.
Donizetti is a true Romantic artist, inaugurating the 19th century by challenging the classical, dramaturgical and musical canons and proposing an art that was revolutionary for his time but indispensable to ours as well. Time is not the best judge, neither in art nor in life. This is demonstrated, among other things, by the theme that unites two of the three titles of the Donizetti Opera, Roberto Devereux and Don Pasquale: that, burning, of the possibility of love, and therefore of desire, even at a mature or even late age, without distinction of gender. A topic where, once again, Donizetti’s theater proves itself capable of speaking to our contemporary times. “Roberto Devereux is my favorite Donizetti opera,” has repeatedly had occasion to declare the festival’s music director Riccardo Frizza, who, after performing it around the world, will conduct it with the Donizetti Opera Orchestra in Bergamo for the 2024 festival (Teatro Donizetti, Friday, Nov. 15, Saturday, Nov. 23 and Thursday, Nov. 28). The direction, on the other hand, is by Englishman Stephen Langridge who, formerly head of Gothenburg Opera, is currently artistic director of the Glyndebourne festival as well as a regular guest on major stages such as the Royal Opera House in London, Lyric Opera in Chicago, and the Salzburg Festival.
The vocal protagonists of this which is “the last stage of the noir saga that over the years Donizetti dedicated to the Tudor dynasty” (P. Fabbri), are some celebrated Belcanto performers such as Jessica Pratt (Elisabetta), John Osborn (Roberto Devereux), Simone Piazzola (Nottingham), Raffaella Lupinacci (Sara), David Astorga (Cecil) and the students of the Bottega Donizetti 2023); sets and costumes are by Katie Davenport; the staging is co-produced with the Teatro Sociale of Rovigo. Donizetti worked on the composition of the opera during the summer of 1837, a period ravaged by negative events, such as the death of his third son and especially his beloved wife Virginia Vasselli. The Devereux is a turning point opera. Compared to the previous “English” titles, and benefiting from the experience he had gained, the musician investigated the figure of Elisabeth more thoroughly, and drew from it a tragic and multifaceted character, to which corresponds a vocality that is at once impervious, virtuosic and sorrowful. The dramma buffo Don Pasquale (Teatro Donizetti, Sunday, Nov. 17, Friday, Nov. 22 and Saturday, Nov. 30) is certainly among the Bergamasque’s best-known and best-loved titles since its triumphant debut in Paris in 1843:it will be vocally entrusted to two “masters” such as Roberto de Candia (Don Pasquale) and Javier Camarena (Ernesto) joined by the voices of the students of the Bottega Donizetti, once again reaffirming the Bergamasque event’s desire to be a springboard for new voices. The performance-signed by director Amélie Niemeyer with sets and costumes by Maria-Alice Bahra-comes from the Opéra de Dijon. On the podium of the Donizetti Opera Orchestra is the young Mexican Iván López Reynoso who, revealed at the Rossini Opera Festival, is currently music director of the Orchestra of the Teatro Bellas Artes in Mexico City. “Like Elisir, like Lucia, Don Pasquale,” stresses scientific director Paolo Fabbri, “has never stopped being performed since it was born. An evergreen masterpiece of Donizetti’s last creative season. At that time, it is not like there were so many of them in the comic field. In fact, it was precisely the genre of comic opera that was in crisis.
[…] Don Pasquale goes further, towards a chamber comedy whose protagonist at times verges on caricature, but almost always remains beyond it. Of the amorous frenzies of an old man for a young woman, people had laughed for centuries: Ruffini and Donizetti preferred to smile wistfully, also because the composer – as we know from his biography – was smiling at himself.” Donizetti, with his music, breaks through the boundaries of comic conventions, so much so that the modernity of the score should have been reflected in the staging that the composer wanted to be contemporary. The #donizetti200 cycle at the Social Theater
The title turning two centuries and being performed annually as #donizetti200 is, in 2024, Zoraida by Granata (Teatro Sociale Nov. 16 and 24, Dec. 1) to a libretto by Bartolomeo Merelli and – for the version that premiered at Rome’s Teatro Argentina on Jan. 7, 1824 – Jacopo Ferretti. This is a co-production with Wexford Festival Opera, which a few months ago presented the same title but in the 1822 version; in both cases the critical edition was edited by Edoardo Cavalli for the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti. Director of the show is Bruno Ravella, born in Casablanca with Italian and Polish ancestry, studies in France and now based in London; sets and costumes are by Gary McCann. The cast includes Konu Kim (Almuzir, the only performer in common with the Irish festival), Zuzana Marková (Zoraida), Cecilia Molinari, (Abenamet) and also for this title some characters will be entrusted to the Allievi della Bottega Donizetti. On the podium, Alberto Zanardi, a young baton who has grown up in recent years “behind the scenes” of the festival and who will interpret the Piccolo composer’s music in 2023, will lead the orchestra of period instruments Gli Originali. Fundamental as always – in the drafting of the festival program, the choice of editions and the philological restitution of musical texts – is the activity of study and research on Donizetti’s legacy and stylistic individuality, entrusted to the care of the Foundation’s scientific section directed by Paolo Fabbri. Also continuing in 2024 is the collaboration with the Accademia Teatro alla Scala with the presence of its Chorus directed by Salvo Sgrò. As usual, in the pit will be the Donizetti Orchestra and the Orchestra Gli Originali, with which the systematic exploration of Donizetti pages on period instruments is being carried out.
