Rossini Opera Festival announces 2025 programme after this year’s opening performance
After last night’s opening opera at the Rossini Opera Festival with Bianca e Falliero (Starring Jessica Pratt and Aya Wakizono) and before tonight’s presentation of the season’s second opera, L’equivoco stravagante, the programme for ROF 2025 festival has been announced.
The 46th edition will take place from 10 to 22 August 2025 and will feature three operas, two new productions and one revival.
The festival will open on 10 August with a new production of Zelmira, conducted by Giacomo Sagripanti, who will return to Pesaro after 2021’s after Moïse et Pharaon. The production will be by Spanish director Calixto Bieito, who will be making his debut in Pesaro.
L’Italiana in Algeri is the second new production and opens on 12 August, conducted by Dmitry Korchak who was last at ROF in 2020 for a Covid-aware Cambiale di matrimonio. It will be directed by Rosetta Cucchi, who has staged Adina (2018) and Otello (2022) in Pesaro.
Davide Livermore’s Il Turco in Italia, well received in 2016, will be revived on 11 August, conducted by Diego Ceretta, which will be his debut in Pesaro.
The concert programme will include the customary bel canto concerts and lyric-symphonic concerts (one of which will feature three Rossini Cantatas in a new critical edition), and the Messa per Rossini, written by 13 Italian composers to mark the first anniversary of Rossini’s death, a project proposed by Verdi.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Italian ballerina Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
