Rossini Opera Festival 2024

The Petite messe solennelle conducted by Michele Mariotti closed the 44th edition of the Rossini Opera Festival.

There were 40 events on the programme, including performances and meetings. This year saw the opera festival getting back on its feet after the pandemic restrictions with half the audience members coming from abroad. Highlights were the premiere of the critical edition of Eduardo and Cristina and the extremely rare Aureliano in Palmira and Adelaide di Borgogna, as well as two cantatas never before performed at the ROF.

Next year, Pesaro becomes Italian Capital of Culture 2024 and the Rossini Opera Festival 2024, the 45th edition, will be held from 7 to 23 August. There will be five opera productions with a new production of Bianca e Falliero, conducted by Roberto Abbado and staged by Jean-Louis Grinda, which will open the festival. The opera has been absent from the ROF since 2005. It will be followed by a new production of Ermione, conducted by Michele Mariotti and directed by Johannes Erath. The title has not been performed at the Festival since 2008.

There will also be two revivals: L'equivoco stravagante, created for ROF 2019 by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, which will be conducted by Michele Spotti, and Il barbiere di Siviglia, created for ROF 2018 by Pier Luigi Pizzi, this time conducted by Lorenzo Passerini. There is a double date with Il viaggio a Reims to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the opera's first modern performance in Pesaro in 1984: in addition to the usual version performed by the students of the Accademia Rossiniana “Alberto Zedda”, the Festival's signature piece will be presented in concert form under the baton of Diego Matheuz.

The Italian Ministry of Culture has funded the “Cenerentola #25 project” which aims to create an itinerary for the dissemination of historical and artistic content related to the knowledge of opera as a symbol of Italian cultural heritage throughout the world, also through digital technologies. Cenerentola #25 celebrates the 25th anniversary of Luca Ronconi's production at the ROF in 1998 and is divided into three sections: Getting to know, meeting and playing with Cenerentola.

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.