Sferisterio Opera Festival
The Sferisterio Opera Festival is a music festival specializing in the performance of operas that takes place every summer in Macerata , Italy . Three or four operas are performed from July to August. The official name Sferisterio Music Festival refers to the venue.
Organization and history
The venue is the Arena Sferisterio , a stadium in neoclassical architecture that was built between 1819 and 1829. The arena holds 3500 to 4000 people. The music festival took place for the first time in 1921, Aida was staged by Giuseppe Verdi . The performance was scheduled 17 times and mobilized 70,000 people. The following year, La Gioconda was staged by Amilcare Ponchielli , after which the music festival was suspended for a period of 45 years.
From 1967 music festivals took place again, Otello by Verdi and Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini. Famous Italian operas from the 19th and early 20th centuries came on the stage, but then came new foreign works and experimental productions ("directorial theater"), for example by Ken Russell .
In 1989 the Lauro Rossi Theater (550 seats) in Macerata was renovated, and some of the more intimate operas played at the festival were performed here in the following years.
Luciano Pavarotti , Placido Domingo , Montserrat Caballé , Marilyn Horne and Katia Ricciarelli performed at the music festival . The invitation of famous opera singers continued with Renato Bruson. In the 1990s, the number of international star singers decreased. Ricciarelli took over the artistic direction. In the meantime, Pier Luigi Pizzi was appointed artistic director in 2006. Under him there was a reform, Pizzi issues a motto for every year in order to bring a uniform line into the repertoire.
Video recordings (DVD)
- Bellini, Norma - Dīmītra Theodosiou / Daniela Barcellona / Carlo Ventre, 2007 Dynamic
- Bizet, Carmen - Nino Surguladze / Irina Lungu, regia Dante Ferretti , 2008 Dynamic
- Donizetti, L'elisir d'amore - Niels Muus / Valeria Esposito / Aquiles Machado / Enrico Marrucci / Erwin Schrott / Roberta Canzian, regia di Saverio Marconi , 2002 Arthaus Musik / Naxos
- Donizetti, Maria Stuarda - Riccardo Frizza / Laura Polverelli / Maria Pia Piscitelli / Giovanna Lanza / Roberto De Biasio / Simone Alberghini / Mario Cassi, regia di Pier Luigi Pizzi , 2007 Naxos
- Mozart, Don Giovanni - Riccardo Frizza / Ildebrando D'Arcangelo / Andrea Concetti / Enrico Giuseppe Iori / Myrtò Papatanasiu / Marlin Miller / Carmela Remigio, regia di Pier Luigi Pizzi, 2009 C Major / Naxos
- Offenbach, Les contes d'Hoffmann - Frédéric Chaslin / Vincenzo La Scola / Desirée Rancatore / Ruggero Raimondi / Tiziana Carraro, regia di Pier Luigi Pizzi, 2004 Dynamic
- Puccini, Madama Butterfly - Daniele Callegari / Raffaella Angeletti / Massimiliano Pisapia / Annunziata Vestri / Claudio Sgura, regia di Pier Luigi Pizzi, 2009 C Major / Naxos
- Rossi, Cleopatra - David Crescenzi / Dīmītra Theodosiou / Alessandro Liberatore / Paolo Pecchioli / Sebastian Catana / William Corrò / Tiziana Carraro, regia di Pier Luigi Pizzi, 2008 Naxos
- Verdi, Macbeth - Daniele Callegari / Giuseppe Altomare / Olha Zhuravel / Pavel Kudinov / Rubens Pelizzari / Marco Voleri, regia di Pier Luigi Pizzi, 2007 Naxos DVD / CD
- Zandonai, Francesca da Rimini - Maurizio Barbacini / Daniela Dessì / Fabio Armiliato / Giacinta Nicotra / Alberto Mastromarino, regia di Massimo Gasparon, 2004 Arthaus Musik / Naxos
literature
- EH Ercoli, Sferisterio, Macerata, Associazione Arena Sferisterio , 2007.
- Karyl Lynn Zeitz, Italian Opera Houses and Festivals , Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2005, ISBN 0-8108-5359-0 .