Michela Gerosa

The theme of WOD 2024 is "Welcome to the Opera" and celebrates UNESCO's recognition of Italian opera singing as an Intangible Heritage of Humanity Introduction to the operas and open rehearsals with free admission (reservations recommended) Bergamo, Teatro Donizetti and Teatro Sociale, Friday, Oct. 25, 5:30 p.m. We are now less than a month away from the opening of the 10th edition of Donizetti Opera, an international festival dedicated to the Bergamasque composer that will be held in his hometown from November 14 to December 1. As every year, over the next few weeks, there will be various opportunities for the public to discover in advance some details of the scheduled performances: it begins on Friday, October 25, with the sixth edition of World Opera Day, promoted by Opera Europa, OPERA America and Opera Latinoamérica. Theaters and festivals around the world celebrate the start of their seasons with new projects and perspectives, to reinvent and innovate. This year's WOD is titled "Welcome to Opera" and is dedicated precisely to Italian opera singing, which, in 2023, has been included in the list of intangible heritages of humanity drawn up by UNESCO. The organizers therefore proposed to theaters around the world to celebrate this recognition in the simplest but also most meaningful way: that is, by performing an iconic piece or a rarity from the Italian opera repertoire. The Donizetti Opera responded immediately being, among other things, this constitutive prescription of the festival. It will therefore be possible to access the rehearsals of Don Pasquale at Teatro Donizetti and Zoraida di Granata at Teatro Sociale, two titles that represent, respectively, of Donizetti's catalog the best-known repertoire and the one to be rediscovered. On Friday, Oct. 25 from 5:30 p.m., you can watch the rehearsal of the two titles introduced by the Foundation's musicologists who will guide the audience through the stage preparation and musical content of the 2024 festival. To participate, reservations are recommended through gaetanodonizetti.org All fans are invited to share their passion for opera and the world of Donizetti on social media with the hashtags #WorldOperaDay and #donizettiopera. On the occasion of World Opera Day, from Friday, Oct. 25 to Sunday, Oct. 27 (online and at the box office), tickets for LU OpeRave, the Lucia di Lammermoor-inspired show that brings together Donizetti's music with electronics and will be staged on Nov. 14, 21 and 29, also at 9:30 p.m., at the Balzer Globe, will be available for the special price of €11. Full details on cast and ticket purchase are available at www.donizetti.org.

Riding the wave of the important results achieved with the 2023|2024 seasons, the Donizetti Theater Foundation, with the City of Bergamo, announces the upcoming Prose Season and Other Paths, the backbone of the Theater Season whose full program schedule also includes Operetta and Opera&Concerts, as well as numerous educational projects in the pipeline. A rich and multifaceted program will run at Teatro Donizetti and Teatro Sociale over six months, from December 2024 to May 2025, with seven titles on the bill for the Prose Season, for eight performances of each show (Saturday through Sunday of the following week; Monday rest), and as many for Altri Percorsi, with two matinees. In introducing the upcoming Prose Season and Other Paths, Giorgio Berta, President of the Donizetti Theater Foundation, takes the opportunity to thank those who are working to make it a success: "As President of the Foundation, I cannot but express satisfaction with what has been done in recent years, with the difficult times now behind us. After the restoration work and the emergency period, the Donizetti Theater has indeed been reborn on new foundations, even more solid than before. And co-leading this rebirth are the City of Bergamo and the many institutional and private partners who support us, as well as all the staff, technical and administrative, of the Foundation, without whose professionalism it would be unthinkable to achieve certain goals of excellence that so many envy us. To everyone goes my personal thanks and those of the Foundation itself, whose role is increasingly proactive and aimed at stimulating broad segments of the public, with the intention of being a point of reference for younger generations as well." Massimo Boffelli, General Director of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, takes his cue from the success of the 2023|2024 Season to turn his gaze to the future: "We present the new Season of Prose and Other Paths strong from the results we have just achieved: 52,672 were the total number of spectators for Prose, with an average of more than 1,000 per performance; 5,126 for Altri Percorsi. These are important numbers that in the immediate future will translate into an increase in the number of performances for Prose: eight for all seven titles on the bill. Numbers that, beyond their quantitative value, attest to the increasingly strong and deep bond between the public and the artistic proposals of our Foundation, of which the Prose Season and Altri Percorsi is one of the cornerstones, together with the Donizetti Opera festival, Bergamo Jazz, the new review Lezioni di Storia and Operetta. All this is an unmistakable sign of the attractive force that these varied proposals have toward the city and beyond. The Donizetti Theater, and with it the Teatro Sociale, is increasingly asserting itself as the home of culture for the people of Bergamo and also for those who come from afar." Maria Grazia Panigada foreshadows the new Season of Prose and Altri Percorsi, of which she is Artistic Director, "as a place where people go

Having announced the Prose Season and Other Paths in recent weeks, the Donizetti Theater Foundation completes the presentation of the 2024-2025 Theater Season with the sections of Opera&Concerts, Operetta Season and the End-of-Year Musical, complementing a rich and multifaceted programming that covers a time span that collectively runs from December 2024 to May 2025. The seven titles of Prose, all scheduled for eight performances, and the same number of Other Paths, are thus joined by another nine events divided between Teatro Donizetti and Teatro Sociale: "A vast and articulated offer that allows us to explore different modes of expression and thus reach diversified audience segments, further consolidating the link between the City and its two main theaters," comments Massimo Boffelli, General Manager of the Donizetti Theater Foundation. "Operetta at the Donizetti is now a widely proven season that gathers around it a loyal audience, and the section dedicated to concerts and opera is also consolidated year by year, thanks to important collaborations: now we greet, among the partners of our Foundation, the Polli Stoppani Foundation, thanks to which we can include in the program a musical event of absolute regard that goes along with the concerts organized together with the Italian Philharmonic Orchestra, the pre-Christmas event with I Piccoli Musici and one of the new productions of OperaLombardia. Finally, after last year's success, we will reintroduce a musical on the evening of Dec. 31. All this contributes to placing the Donizetti Theater and the Teatro Sociale in a central and indispensable position in the City's cultural life," Boffelli concludes. Opera&Concerts Opera&Concerti is the section of La Stagione dei Teatri dedicated to music with projects and repertoires that cross different genres, uniting them with each other, and fostering collaboration with important institutional and associative realities in the Lombardy region. It begins with theEnsemble of the Italian Philharmonic Orchestra, which on Thursday, December 5, 2024, offers a new project entitled The Five Elements: Earth Air Water Fire Ether, with the whimsical violin of Alessandro Quarta acting as a guide among the five elements, transforming them and making them his own, bringing the quintessence of nature in concert. The new partnership with the Polli Stoppani Foundation will be in the sign of a prestigious pair of pianists, Michele Campanella and Monica Leone, who will perform the Ninth Symphony by Beethoven in Franz Liszt's brilliant transcription for two pianos (Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024). And in keeping with established tradition, the end-of-year and beginning-of-year festivities will be marked by the Christmas Concert and the New Year's Concert, respectively. The former will feature, on Saturday, December 21 at 3:30 p.m., the I Piccoli Musici choir directed by Mario Mora, with a program, different from previous years, entitled The Sound of the Voice: a selection of Folk Songs from different nations, excerpts from musicals by Leonard Bernstein and Richard Rodgers, Opera Songs remembering the centenary of Giacomo Puccini's death, as well as some of the most beautiful Christmas melodies. The New Year's greeting, with the fullItalian

Progetto Young, the well-established training workshop for actresses and actors strongly desired by Maria Grazia Panigada, Artistic Director of the Prose Season and Other Paths of the Donizetti Foundation, and curated by director Fabio Comana, is back again for the biennium 2024 -2025. As usual, the workshop is aimed at young people between the ages of 18 and 26, with at least 2 years' experience in basic theater training and a propensity for group work. To participate, applicants must sign the appropriate form attaching their resume no later than Sept. 24 at 12 noon: https://forms.gle/qVMKAyChUhogoMPN8. The following week, those who have passed the first selection on the basis of the curriculum will be invited to participate in a second one, on October 2 and 3, consisting of a collective practical test, in seminar form. The second selection, which will be conducted by Fabio Comana himself and will take place at the "Benvenuto Cuminetti" rehearsal room of the Donizetti Theater, will allow, through a series of exercises, improvisations, interpretations of texts, a more direct and in-depth knowledge of the technical and human characteristics of the participants. From this second selection will come to life the group of actors and actresses of the Young 2024-2025 project. Participation in the course, which will run from October 2024 to June 2025, involves a registration fee of 300 euros, which can be paid in one lump sum before the start of the course or in two installments (first installment in October 2024 and second installment in January 2025). The objective of Progetto Young is to contribute to the initiation of young people into an advanced level of acting, but also and above all to encourage a vision as open as possible to the future of theatrical art, to provide a series of elements so that each person can invent and experiment with his or her own idea of theater: an indispensable condition for the renewal of languages and the evolution of a theater capable of speaking to this ever-changing society. The training of actors and actresses has from the outset the goal of giving back to the city the fruit of their creativity, participating in an active and recognizable way in some significant events of the city's cultural life. An indispensable element for the training of the young trainees will be the shared viewing of scheduled shows and participation in meetings with guest artists of the Prose and Other Paths season of the Donizetti Theater. Maria Grazia Panigada underscores the value of Progetto Young: "We are approaching a new edition of Progetto Young strengthened by past experience and the success of the show Vorrei che fosse amore, which last June featured 18 young people on stage with Cèsar Brie's. Following their artistic and human journey for two years has been a source of encouragement for me on all that I accomplish within the Donizetti Theatre Foundation: I am sure that the next edition of Progetto Young will also bear fruit, confirming the vitality of our

D COME DIECI TWO DAYS, ONE IN SEPTEMBER AND ONE IN NOVEMBER, TO CELEBRATE THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DONIZETTI OPERA FESTIVAL Sept. 28 in anticipation of the new edition and Nov. 29 in the Dies Natalis to retrace the most significant moments of the ten editions of the festival dedicated to the Bergamasque composer. Performances, meetings, activities for children, guided tours. Free tickets and reservations online and at the Donizetti Theater box office. Donizetti Opera, a festival dedicated to the Bergamasque composer, reaches the milestone of its tenth edition in 2024: for this reason, the path towards the debuts will be opened by a moment of celebration next Saturday, September 28, which will then be completed with another day, which has always been a fundamental moment in the programming, namely Friday, November 29, Dies natalis di Gaetano Donizetti. D come Dieci is the set of initiatives planned for these two days, designed to celebrate the ten-year milestone by retracing together with the public and the city the milestones of Donizetti Opera, remembering and commenting on the most beloved and important productions that have allowed us to discover new aspects and new treasures of the art of the orobic composer. Guided tours, performances, conversations, presentations of new initiatives, activities for children, singing workshops, but also screenings of some archival videos from previous editions and the now unfailing Talk with Gaetano, this time reserved not only for artists but for all citizens who want to confess to Donizetti's bust their love for music. On Saturday, Sept. 28, we start at 10 a.m. (until 12:40 p.m., ticket 5 euros) with guided tours of the Donizetti Theater, which has also undergone, as is well known, a thorough restoration. At 2:30 p.m. (Music Hall) for the cycle DeCineForum a video of one of the festival's great rediscoveries, the opera L'ange de Nisida , which even the composer had never seen staged and which was staged in the very theater-building site awaiting rebirth, will be presented and screened. Waiting for DO24, in the Donizetti Studio (4 p.m.). Qui Don Pasquale workshop for children ages 8 to 13 to prepare for the famous title on the program. From 5 p.m. onward in the Quadriportico Parla con Gaetano City Edition., that is, the chance to engage in an imaginary dialogue with the composer, in front of the Donizetti Opera Tube cameras. At 6 p.m. (Riccardi Hall) "The Perfumed Sigh" a new activity in which festival dramaturg Alberto Mattioli will accompany the audience to discover and vote for the perfumes created by Donizetti Ambassador Allegrini with Atelier Fragranze Milano to match the three operas scheduled for 2024. 7 p.m. A Donizetti is Forever, 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. Then one of the most anticipated moments, in the Great Hall (8 p.m., ticket 10 euros), the staging of Giovanni Simone Mayr's opera, rediscovered in 2023, The little music

Saturday, September 21, 2024 - 3:00 p.m. Sorgente Nossana - Ponte Nossa Francesco D'Auria - Tino Tracanna "Spiritus Spiritus Duo" Special guest Michel Godard Bergamo Jazz special event in collaboration with Uniacque Dedicated to Sofi Bergamo Jazz returns to the Seriana Valley for a special event produced in collaboration with Uniacque, the company that manages the water service in Bergamo and the province, which has been a partner of the Donizetti Theater Foundation and the Festival for many years. The concert, scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 21, at Sorgente Nossana in Ponte Nossa (3 p.m.), will feature a trio formed by Frenchman Michel Godard, tuba, serpentone and electric bass, saxophonist Tino Tracanna and drummer and percussionist Francesco D'Auria. The concert will be dedicated to Claudio Giudici, known to all as Sofi, one of the founders of Clusone Jazz and a great friend of Bergamo Jazz, who recently passed away. "The Donizetti Theater Foundation is pleased to be able to further consolidate its partnership with Uniacque, on the occasion of a new concert at Sorgente Nossana in Ponte Nossa. For years Uniacque has been by our side sharing proposals and artistic vision: specifically in Bergamo Jazz, this is the third time we are proposing an event together, after the concerts of 2022 with Gianluigi Trovesi and 2023 with Francesco Chiapperini's ensemble. An event that, this year, has a special meaning in the memory of one of the founders of Clusone Jazz, who has always been very close to our Festival. Bergamo Jazz is an international event that cultivates in parallel a strong relationship with the territory that hosts it: this is the perspective in which this third concert in Val Seriana fits," comments Massimo Boffelli, General Manager of the Donizetti Theater Foundation. "What unites Uniacque and Fondazione Teatro Donizetti is the common vision of the role that music and culture can play in promoting and supporting other topical issues as well, such as sustainability, which concerns us all. This is why we chose Sorgente Nossana as the venue for the concert, sharing the desire to bring great jazz music to our Seriana Valley and to open the doors of one of the most important springs in our area. A unique opportunity to listen to extraordinary music in a setting as unusual as it is fascinating, which will allow the audience to understand the importance that water plays in our lives," adds Pierangelo Bertocchi, CEO of Uniacque. The trio consisting of Michel Godard, Tino Tracanna and Francesco D'Auria starts from the idea of telling the story of music through a web of themes and improvisations. The need to tell their stories through music that cannot be labeled in predefined schemes helps the three musicians perceive musical language as the most appropriate vehicle of communication. The project moves in the great bed of jazz and the art of improvisation, but is complicit with the great cultures of the world, with an eye to the future and the search for a fresh and lively

Donizetti Opera, an international festival dedicated to the Bergamasque composer, reaches the milestone in 2024 of tenth edition that will run from November 14 to December 1, 2024. It will be the last one signed by artistic director Francesco Micheli who has led it since its founding in 2015. "I proudly greet my city and Teatro Donizetti," Francesco Micheli said during today's press conference, "knowing that I leave as a legacy a Festival that in two lustrums has become an international reference point. Four "Abbiati Awards" from the National Association of Music Critics, Best European Festival in 2019 according to German critics for the monthly magazine "Oper!" and many other satisfactions that I have experienced with many of you. Thanks to our work today Gaetano lives and struggles with us from Bergamo in the world." "For Bergamo it has been ten years of change," comments Culture Councillor Sergio Gandi, "lived with the usual spirit of initiative that distinguishes the city. The Donizetti Theater has played a very important role beyond these walls-which we strongly wanted to rebuild and modernize-and today the city's awareness with respect to the legacy handed down to us by Gaetano Donizetti is no longer a matter for melomaniacs or a few connoisseurs but is an integral part of our identity, thanks to the work of the festival and a long journey that culminated in Bergamo-Brescia being the Italian capital of culture. For this musical phenomenon, which has seen in Francesco Micheli its most exposed standard bearer, credit must also be given to the administration that has supported its initiatives and to the many sponsors and private partners that have flanked it. The relationship between what we now affectionately call Gaetano and the city cannot go backwards and must always be at the center of our cultural policies." "To accompany a "revolution" such as the one we have seen in these ten years," stressed Donizetti Theatre Foundation President Giorgio Berta, "required a solid organizational structure that had grown over the years, such as that of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, which I have chaired since 2016. The challenges posed to us by Francesco Micheli in recent years, as well as that of restructuring and pandemic, have been considerable. However, we have faced them, respecting time and costs both in the happiest moments of performance, such as the rediscovery of the Ange de Nisida, and when facing moments of uncertainty and health and social emergency. Years in which we did not give up, but invented or identified new tools and new methods of audience engagement, such as WebTV in 2020 with 11 thousand viewers. Donizetti Opera, in the vision of Francesco Micheli and the growing commitment of all the Foundation's workers, has succeeded in making all Bergamasks, starting with young people, understand the value of the composer Donizetti and the universal message of his theater. We are grateful to Francesco also because he leaves us a further gift: the programming set for the next two years, with an international

PROJECT YOUNG 2024/2025 Actor selection SELECTED CANDIDATES In alphabetical order: Agazzi Maria Baldin Francesco Bolchi Sofia Cianciola Matteo Citroni Martina Di Caro Martina Galasso Sonia Gervasoni Leila Ghirardello Ilaria Gotti Beatrice Grossi Carolina Invernici Paolo Marchesi Clara Masolini Matteo Mercurio Elisa Pizzaballa Giulia Salvi Marta Sanchioni Letizia Sardo Andrea Scotti Leonardo Spertini Valeria Tasca Daniela The second round of selection will take place on Wednesday, October 2 and Thursday, October 3, 2024 from 5 pm.00 to 8 p.m. at the Cuminetti Hall of the Donizetti Theater in Bergamo, located at Piazza Cavour, 15 with entrance through the Galleries door. Punctuality is required. To be eligible for the final selection, participation is mandatory to both selection days.  

With the imminent start of a new Season of Prose and Other Paths of the Donizetti Theater Foundation, the educational projects connected to it are also getting underway, an important point of connection between the offer of shows and moments of reflection and in-depth study of the issues addressed by the shows themselves. Five projects will take place within numerous educational institutions, to which are added Progetto Young, intended for aspiring actors, two courses for stage technicians, a series of meetings around the show Re Lear è morto a Mosca and meetings for students subscribing to Altri Percorsi. More than 3,000 (from 17 schools in Bergamo and its province) overall are the requests from students to attend the Prosa and Altri Percorsi shows: an important sign of great attention to proposals that are articulated between classic texts and the more experimental languages of contemporary theatrical expressiveness. "The Municipality of Bergamo strongly supports all the activities of the Donizetti Theater Foundation, even more so if these activities are aimed at the growth of the new generations," comments Sergio Gandi, Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Bergamo, "A praise, therefore, goes to the Foundation and to the Artistic Director of the Prose Season and Altri Percorsi Maria Grazia Panigada for the commitment put into bringing them closer, with multiple initiatives, to the multifaceted, fascinating world of theater." "In our activities we pay special attention to the involvement of the new generations, through initiatives that encourage participation in the performances and that take place in the same schools," says Giorgio Berta, President of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, "Education is one of the primary objectives of the Foundation: it is an indispensable tool to make young people aware of reality also through art and to create an increasingly aware audience of tomorrow." Massimo Boffelli, General Director of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation, adds, "Our institutional task is to promote a series of performing arts activities that are not, however, an end in themselves: the training projects promoted by the Foundation are therefore an invitation to a mature and conscious enjoyment of performing arts events that are in no way unrelated to the reality that surrounds us. The Donizetti Theater, and with it the Teatro Sociale, is the home of the people of Bergamo and must be even more so for the new generations." For Maria Grazia Panigada, Artistic Director of the Prose Season and Other Paths, "The educational projects are the heart of the activity of our season, a suspended time in which to question our own and collective reality: they load the programming with meaning and open up avenues of reflection for the new generations who, through them, approach theater in its truest sense. Themes such as the generational relationship or the dimension of identity in relation to others will be addressed starting from the experiences of the children and then traversed through the words of dramaturgy and staging. In particular, the in-depth project will be dedicated to environmental issues, which, as

PROGETTO YOUNG 2024/2025 - Actors Course FINAL SELECTION In alphabetical order: Baldin Francesco Bolchi Sofia Citroni Martina Di Caro Martina Galasso Sonia Gervasoni Leila Gotti Beatrice Grossi Carolina Invernici Paolo Marchesi Clara Masolini Matteo Mercurio Elisa Pizzaballa Giulia Salvi Marta Sanchioni Letizia Sardo Andrea Spertini Valeria Tasca Daniela   The course will kick off on Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 5 p.m. at Spazio Polaresco.