Opere of the Montefeltro Festival 2024
May 19, 2024
UNESCO's recognition of Italian Opera Singing as an INTANGIBLE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY fills us with joy.
2024 marks a new beginning for Italian Opera. On December 6th 2023, UNESCO finally recognized 'Italian opera singing' as an Intangible Heritage of Humanity. This is wonderful news for our 'International Lyric Academy - Italian Phonetics for Belcanto', for the Montefeltro Festival connected to it, and for the various international partners who regularly come to Novafeltria.For us, it is also a year of taking stock. It is exactly 20 years since we have started to produce operas and circulate them in the territory together with La Musica Lirica USA (which has been present in Italy for 25 years), thanks also to the sensitivity of municipal administrations, various bodies, precious and faithful sponsors and subsequently also the Region Emilia Romagna. 54 productions in total have been created with 218 performances of 26 different operas in dozens of different cities and locations, historic theaters and art venues.
2024 will also welcome 3 new productions, each of which scheduled for 4 performances, and the addition of an oratory production linked to one of the operas. The two weeks from the 13th to 25th of July will be full of operatic events in an itinerary that from Novafeltria will wind through Maciano di Pennabilli, Cattolica, Santarcangelo di Romagna, Sant'Agata Feltria, San Mauro Pascoli and San Marino, all places rich in art and history framed by splendid scenaries. The public will be able to witness three masterpieces which are cornerstones of the evolution of theatrical music: Mozart's 'Le Nozze di Figaro', Verdi's 'La Traviata' and Puccini's 'Suor Angelica'.
Maestri, directors and an international faculty will do their utmost best to bring these productions to life through various excellent workshops with all the artists and students who will stay in Novafeltria from June 22nd. At the same time, the competent scenography, tailoring and lighting staff will prepare the technical-artistic components of the shows which will be flexibly adapted to the various locations. The Orchestra Città di Ravenna (an all-Italian orchestra) will be under the baton of the indispensable M° Joseph Rescigno and the talented young M° Pietro Billi, while Suor Angelica, one of our tributes to the "Year of Puccini", will be conducted on the piano by M° Sara Church.
An extra tribute will be rightfully given to the artistry of Puccini, exploring a surprising religious 'fil rouge' apparently unrelated to his poetics with his youthful 'Messa di Gloria, for soloists, choir and orchestra', which will involve all of 'La Musica Lirica USA' (from the teachers acting as soloists to all the artists and students acting as the imposing choir) in the prestigious Basilica of San Francesco in Ravenna. It is the very Basilica which, among other things, hosted the last years and days of Dante Alighieri's life. Puccini had designed the Trittico, whose second 'panel' is Suor Angelica, in reference to the Divine Comedy and its three Cantos. We will bring his opera back to one of its cultural roots, to the 'Gran Padre Dante', as Puccini calls him in the last panel of the Trittico: Gianni Schicchi. The first 'opera' of the last great opera composer. We will all have the opportunity to live the experience as a metaphor of the vitality of the 'intangible heritage of humanity' just recognized by UNESCO: Italian Opera.
To celebrate the UNESCO recognition even more, we are also preparing further operatic surprises involving the following program coming from Tokyo, the MICA Opera Training, at the end of August 2024.
Stay tuned to know more about the numerous shows and concerts that will be held until the end of the summer!