The great event that has made Brescia the city of Opera since 2012 returns on Saturday 8 June, marking it as unique at a national level. Every year the Opera Festival transforms the urban fabric of the city into an open-air theatre, with over 50 events, all with free participation, hundreds of artists and dozens of public and private places which, in a single day, from dawn to midnight, they are overwhelmed and transformed by the charm of the Opera. A project, conceived and organized by the Fondazione del Teatro Grande of Brescia, which has the ability to bring the high artistic prestige of the city’s Massimo even outside the places traditionally dedicated to the performance of live performances.
The strong attractive capacity of the Festival also allows us to introduce new audiences to music and opera and to encourage greater participation in the cultural and social life of the area. For these reasons, Festa dell’Opera was awarded the prestigious Filippo Siebaneck Award as part of the Franco Abbiati Awards of Italian music criticism and in 2024 it was recognized by the Ministry of Culture as one of the ‘Special Projects for Puccini anniversaries’ in the category Music.
This initiative also stands out for its ability to combine music with the discovery of cultural heritage, a combination that attracts not only the city audience, but also the tourist audience: the frescoed halls of the city’s historic buildings will alternate with the more spiritual spaces of the churches towns, giving way to courtyards, terraces, squares, but also social places, parks and metro stations that will host concerts, singing recitals, shows and meetings, sometimes opening up to the public for the first time. The Festival enters everyday city life by combining public spaces and private stories to strengthen the sense of belonging to a single community which constitutes the most authentic and precious legacy of Bergamo Brescia 2023.
Through a rich and varied programme, which will also take place on the preview day of Friday 7 June, the Opera Festival will offer spectators a renewed opportunity to discover Brescia from new and unexpected points of view. The atmosphere of the Festival will be even more felt thanks to the numerous collaborations that are renewed and strengthened year after year, involving the economic activities of the area in specific actions that affect shops, restaurants, but also the city’s means of transport to spread the atmosphere of the Celebration throughout the territory.
Always sensitive to environmental sustainability, the Teatro Grande Foundation renews its invitation to spectators to reach the Opera Festival events by bicycle or public transport. The collaboration with the Brescia Mobilità Group will bring a piped broadcast of opera arias to the city stations of the Brescia metro which can be heard in all the stations of the network on 7 and 8 June. With BiciBrescia, a special space will be set up near the events of the Festival where it is possible to carry out tire checks and technical maintenance of the bikes in case of need. In collaboration with BiciBrescia, Brescia Mobilità and Fiab Brescia ‘Amici della Bici Brescia’ the Opera Bike event will also be revived, which will offer a pleasant bicycle tour through the streets of the city in the company of the singers of the Festival.
The collaboration with the Duc (Urban Commerce District) is renewed and expanded in terms of content. Around 300 commercial businesses in the city will be transformed into as many Opera Points which on Friday 7 and Saturday 8 June will have at their disposal personalized Opera Festival gadgets to give to their customers, thus giving life to a real network of activities connected with the world of Opera throughout the historic center. From this year the Urban District of Commerce will also collaborate on the ‘With opera you eat’ project: together with Ambasciatori dei Sapori and Brescia nel Piatto, restaurants, shops, cafés and refreshment points in the city will be involved in the creation of special menus, cocktails, desserts and dishes dedicated to the Opera.
On Saturday 8 June the Caffè del Teatro Grande – Berlucchi will also be open from 10.00 to 20.00 in the spaces of the Ridotto del Teatro Grande and, as per tradition, will display the special bottle that every year the Guido Berlucchi company creates exclusively for the Festival of the Opera. During the day, patrons of the Caffè del Teatro Grande – Berlucchi will have the opportunity to attend the ‘Opera Tastings’, five different musical performances (10.30am, 12.30pm, 4.45pm, 6.30pm, 7.15pm) which will see two pianists taking turns to accompany some young voices of the Luca Marenzio Conservatory of Brescia.
With local tourism promotion bodies, in particular with Visit Brescia (www.visitbrescia.it) and the Tourism Office of the Municipality of Brescia, joint communication actions will be carried out in order to reach and involve Italian and international tourism, with particular attention to the tourist area of the Brescia lakes and to local tourism.
The warmth with which the city welcomes the Opera Festival every year is also evident from the large participation of people who, on a voluntary basis, wish to participate in the realization of this great event: the call launched by the Volunteers Association for Brescia, which collaborates with the Teatro Grande Foundation recorded great participation on this front. The 2024 edition of the Opera Festival is organized with the support of the Municipality of Brescia and the Ministry of Culture. Updated information on the program (even in case of bad weather) will be made available in real time on the website www.festadellopera.it.
