The ‘Estate all’Italiana Festival’ is back for a second year, promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in collaboration with the Associazione ItaliaFestival, the association formed by some of the most prestigious Italian festivals.
From 4 July to 23 September 2021, a tour of the biggest Italian festivals: a programme full of dance, theatre and music, streamed live and on demand free of charge on Vimeo italiana.
Programme:
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Ravenna Festival
4 July 2021: the tour kicks off with Vinicio Capossela’s ‘Bestiario d’amore’ (Bestiary of Love), a performance freely adapted from the work of the same name by Richard de Fournival, dedicated to the various forms that love can assume, following the model of medieval bestiaries: ‘The lover is a monster, overwhelmed by the need to show himself. And since we cannot avoid love, we will celebrate it in the form of a bestiary’.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Campania Teatro Festival
5 July 2021: ‘I Racconti di Mamma Orca’ by Roberto De Simone, with Edoardo Catemario (guitar), and the Quartetto Canonico: Matteo Calosci (violin), Niccolò Musumeci (violin), Margherita Fanton (viola) and Zoltan Szabo (cello). A work in five movements, representing the link between the Neapolitan tradition of ancient and folk music, and contemporary music in its most refined sense.
The Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Brescia and Bergamo Piano Festivals
7 July 2021: Brahms‘ ‘Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra’ n.2 performed by the Festival Philharmonic, Pier Carlo Orizio conductor, Francesco Piemontesi (piano).
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Ravenna Festival
9 July 2021: the young musicians of the Guadagnini Quartet, together with internationally renowned soloist Enrico Bronzi on the cello, will perform the famous String Quartet no 12 in C minor by Franz Schubert. The four string musicians, winners of the prestigious Piero Farulli Prize, and the famous cellist will then perform the Quintet that the composer finished just two months before his death and the climax of his achievements in chamber music: a work of complex architecture, a sort of harmonic kaleidoscope in which the doubling of the lower register creates an almost symphonic character.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Emilia Romagna Festival
12 July 2021: in the evocative setting of the Abbey of Pomposa the prestigious Choir of Friuli Venezia Giulia, directed by the Ernst Hoetzl, with the solo flute by Boris Bizjak, performs the concert Cantate and the sacred motets by J.S. Bach, a fascinating program from Bach to Mendelssohn to the contemporary Cristian Carrara with a new composition in world premiere inspired by Dante’s Paradise, ‘O Somma Luce’ for a cappella choir and flute.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with Areasud
16 July 2021: ‘Unconvential Folk’ by the Sicily Folk Orchestra is performed at Areasud: an ensemble created to rediscover, reinterpret and promote Sicilian musical traditions in a fully contemporary and modern context, regenerating and promoting the island’s repertoire of folk music by bringing it to Italian squares and theatres and to music festivals around the world.
Summer at the Italian Festival with Valle d’Itria Festival
17 July 2021: the Orchestra del Teatro Petruzzelli performs ‘The Creation’ by F.J. Haydn in the rhythmic Italian version prepared for the Puglia regional festival by the philologist Dario Del Corno and which will be revisited for this new edition by his son Filippo. Directed by Fabio Ceresa and sets by Tiziano Santi.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Piccolo Opera Festival
19 July 2021: ‘Maria de Buenos Aires’, a new co-production by the Teatro Goldoni Livorno. With Arianna Manganello (Maria), Giacomo Medici (baritone) and Gianluca Ferrato (actor). Directed by Igor Zobin.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Associazione Figli d’Arte Cuticchio (ATF)
21 July 2021: ‘Rapsodia Fantastica’ performed by Nicola Mogavero (sax), Alessio Pianelli and Francesco Biscari (cellos), Mauro Vivona (horn) and Giacomo Cuticchio (piano and conductor). The five musicians combine wind, strings and keys to reproduce the harmonies and melodies composed by Giacomo Cuticchio and inspired by the Teatro dei Pupi, in a lively reinterpretation of the epic world of chivalry.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Puccini Festival
23 July 2021: Stefania Sandrelli makes her debut as an opera director with ‘Tosca’, a masterpiece that will open the 67th edition of the Puccini Festival.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with Traiettorie
30 July 2021: concert by the Ensemble Prometeo, conducted by Marco Angius. The programme involves close dialogue between the United States and Italy – instrumentally (the absolute sound of Morton Feldman and the illusionistic geometries of Aldo Clementi) and vocally (the interplay between sound and meaning of Brian Ferneyhough and Franco Donatoni) – with the participation of mezzo-soprano Katarzyna Otczyk.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Macerata Opera Festival
4 August 2021: in the magnificent setting of the colonnade of the Sferisterio, a staging of ‘D’un immortale amor’, an original composition by Silvia Colasanti for speaker, countertenor, string quartet and percussion, with lyrics by Mariangela Gualtieri.
Estate all’Italiana Festival con Teatro del Drago (ATF)
7 August 2021: puppetry show without words, in which images, music and animation come together to recreate ‘Pinocchio’ and its playful and colorful atmosphere. The scenography and the puppets are inspired by the images of Alain Letort, a French artist who paid homage to the famous wooden puppet by creating 12 ink plates, later colored by Gianni Plazzi. The words become music and lose their meaning, becoming simple sounds that accompany the movements of the puppets moved by four actors-animators.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Festival Internazionale di Mezza Estate – Tagliacozzo Festival
9 August 2021: the Orchestra Sinfonica Abruzzese performs Beethoven’s Triplo Concerto and Eroica to mark the two hundredth anniversary of Napoleon’s death.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Armonie d’Arte Festival
11 August 2021: the Ensemble Pietrodarchi in a tribute concert to Astor Piazzolla, on a journey between Italy and Argentina, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Rossini Opera Festival
18 August 2021: the students of the ‘Alberto Zedda’ Accademia Rossiniana perform the ‘Journey to Reims’, a playful one-act drama with music by Rossini.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Verdi Festival
21 August 2021: Michele Mariotti, on the podium of the Arturo Toscanini Philharmonic and the Choir of the Teatro Regio di Parma, for the first time conducts Ernani at the 20th Verdi Festival at the Teatro Regio di Parma.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with Umbria Jazz
24 August 2021: Umbria Jazz has organized a very special festival for the afternoon concerts programme. A series dedicated entirely to Italian orchestras, which, despite the difficulties they have faced, demonstrate extraordinary artistic vitality. A varied cross-section of different styles and visions, with the common denominator of the great allure of large ensembles for the audience.
Estate all’italiana Festival with Mittelfest
27 August 2021: opening concert of the 30th edition of Mittelfest. A show created by FVG Orchestra, in a world premiere: Grigor Palikarov conducts the orchestra, with the participation of the young soloist Erica Piccotti, in a concert dedicated to the rivers of Europe, along the Rhine of Schumann’s third symphony and Smetana’s Vltava, stopping on the Devil’s Bridge, musically re-imagined for the occasion by Cristian Carrara.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with Borgate dal Vivo
31 August 2021: Isabella Ragonese opens the sixth edition of Borgate dal Vivo with a special event. From the inner courtyard of the Egyptian Museum in Turin, the actress will read excerpts from Italo Calvino’s ‘Cosmicomics’. The live music accompanying the reading will be provided by Riccardo Mazza, curator of the Frequencies project.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Pordenone Festival of Sacred Music
3 September 2021:the Odechaton Ensemble interprets the Patriarcharumconcentus, directed by Paolo Da Col. The ‘Patriarcharumconcentus’ concert offers an exemplification of the richness of musical languages and forms (hymns, celebratory motets, madrigals, etc.) practiced between the 15th and 16th centuries in the vast area of the Patriarchate of Aquileia, a meeting place for different languages and cultures.
Estate all’Italiana Festival con Opera Estate Festival
7 September 2021: one hundred years after the death of the composer Camille Saint Saens, an Italian network of dance organizations creates the ‘Swans Never Die’ project and invites different artists to work on ‘La morte del cigno’ as a field of experimentation, between reinvention and quotation, between history and memory. Alongside the classic version interpreted by Virna Toppi, prima ballerina at the Teatro alla Scala, the creations of Chiara Bersani, Collettivo MINE, Silvia Gribaudi, Philippe Kratz and Camilla Monga, accompanied by musicians Filippo Vignato and Emanuele Maniscalco.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Mascagni Festival
10 September 2021: the acclaimed jazz pianist Danilo Rea presents a concert at the Mascagni Festival.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Merano Festival
12 September 2021: the Baltic Sea Philarmonic, conducted by Kristjan Järvi, performs ‘The Swan of Tuonela’, op. 22 by Sibelius, ‘Swansong’ by Arvo Pärt and ‘Swan Lake’ by Tchaikovsky.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Festival delle Nazioni
21 September 2021: the Ensemble Sensus in ‘Ut Musica Pictura’, a concert for the 500th anniversary of Raphael’s death.
Estate all’Italiana Festival with the Festival d’Autunno
23 September 2021: Peppe Servillo & Solis String Quartet in “Presentimento”, a project that explores the immense panorama of Neapolitan music, without limiting it to a single author, period or style. From Gil to Viviani, from E.A. Mario to Cioffi / Pisano duo, from ‘Scalinatella’ to ‘Mmiez’o grain to M’aggia curà’ – songs and authors follow each other in beautiful sequences, creating a great show that involves and mixes music, theater and heart.