With the extraordinary participation of Maestro Riccardo Muti. In a single evening, in the largest open-air theater in the world, Anna Netrebko, Jonas Kaufmann, Juan Diego Flórez, Ludovic Tézier, Vittorio Grigolo, Luca Salsi, Eleonora Buratto, Francesco Meli and many other artists, with Roberto’s dance Bolle and Nicoletta Manni. Alberto Angela, Cristiana Capotondi and Luca Zingaretti will lead the audience on a compelling ‘journey’ into the Opera that made the history of music and Italy.
Today, Friday 7 June, the Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with the Arena di Verona Foundation, will celebrate Italian opera singing, a world heritage site, in an exceptional evening at the Verona Arena. In one night, the most beautiful pages of the Opera and, on the same stage, the best performers in the world. A unique event in the history of opera, broadcast worldwide by RAI, with a large orchestra made up of 160 elements and a choir of 300 artists, coming from the Italian symphonic opera foundations, with the extraordinary participation of Maestro Riccardo Muti.
The evening, created with the participation of SIAE, ANFOLS, Teatro alla Scala and Accademia di Santa Cecilia, will be hosted by Alberto Angela, Cristiana Capotondi, Luca Zingaretti. In the audience were the major Italian authorities, representatives of cultural institutions, UNESCO and the ambassadors of the countries in the world where the Opera is most loved. The show will open with the maestro from Molfetta, ambassador of Italian excellence in the world, on the podium. He will conduct the first part of the evening, and the most significant pieces for orchestra and choir of the great Italian opera, from the reign of Belcanto of Guglielmo Tell and Norma, to the Verdi and Risorgimento epics of Nabucco and Macbeth, to the grandiose symphonic and choral pages from Mephistopheles and Manon Lescaut.
The largest open-air theater in the world, home to the oldest and most popular opera festival at an international level, will host a great party that will bring together the world of culture and the greatest international artists, exceptionally on the same stage. In addition to the great pages that have made the history of music, and of Italy itself, the second part of the evening will offer an exciting anthology of the most famous opera pieces by Puccini, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano, played by an unrepeatable cast. Stars from all over the world united by Italian opera singing, such as the sopranos Anna Netrebko, Eleonora Buratto, Rosa Feola, Juliana Grigoryan, Jessica Pratt, Mariangela Sicilia, the mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina, the tenors Jonas Kaufmann, Renè Barbera, Juan Diego Flórez, Vittorio Grigolo, Brian Jagde, Francesco Meli, Galeano Salas, the baritones Nicola Alaimo, Luca Salsi, Ludovic Tézier, the bass Alexander Vinogradov, conducted by the young maestro Francesco Ivan Ciampa.
For the occasion, Fondazione Arena di Verona has designed, with Filippo Tonon, an original scenographic system, which will welcome orchestra and choir on the stage and transform the mystical gulf into a new scenic space for another Italian excellence in the world, dance. The Étoiles Roberto Bolle and Nicoletta Manni will perform two choreographies signed by Massimiliano Volpini, created specifically for this event and performed for the first time. On the music of the great masters, including Giacomo Puccini whose centenary of his death is being celebrated this year, the two Étoiles of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan will first perform a pas de deux to the notes of Madama Butterfly, followed by the solo of Bubbles on Cavalleria Rusticana. Also on stage during the evening were 50 dancers from the Fondazione Arena dance troupe.
The event will be broadcast live worldwide on Rai 1 from 8.30pm. Three different narrators will introduce the general public to the exceptional heritage of Italian opera and opera singing, together for the first time: Alberto Angela, Cristiana Capotondi and Luca Zingaretti.
