The 43rd Festival della Valle d’Itria revolves around four centuries of Italian music theatre: from Monteverdi to Puccini through Vivaldi, Piccinni, Meyerbeer, and Verdi. From the 14th July to the 4th August 2017 Martina Franca opens up once again to its yearly appointment with belcanto. The rich programme, put together by artistic director Alberto Triola and music director Fabio Luisi, commemorates Rodolfo Celletti.
The 43rd Festival della Valle d’Itria revolves around four centuries of Italian music theatre: from Monteverdi to Puccini through Vivaldi, Piccinni, Meyerbeer, and Verdi.
From the 14th July to the 4th August 2017 Martina Franca opens up once again to its yearly appointment with belcanto. The rich programme, put together by artistic director Alberto Triola and music director Fabio Luisi, commemorates the centenary of the birth of Rodolfo Celletti: our never-forgotten artistic director.
The festival starts on the 14th July with Vivaldi’s Orlando furioso – based on Ludovico Ariosto’s masterpiece, celebrating half a millennium of history. The production is in collaboration with Venice’s La Fenice, and directed by the young Fabio Ceresa, winner of the London Opera Awards for the year’s best emerging director. We are pleased to welcome back Diego Fasolis to lead I Barocchisti: an internationally-renowned ensemble famous for their ancient repertoire on original instruments. The second and final repeat is on the 31st July.
With Meyerbeer’s Margherita d’Anjou (first performance on the 29th July, repeats on the 2nd and 4th August) Fabio Luisi marks a further step in our re-discovery of precious, rare belcanto repertoire. Our critical edition is by Ricordi, edited by Paolo Rossini. The work has entered the history of melodrama as the young German composer’s consecration to internationalism: it was his first great professional success, in 1820 at La Scala. The performance is directed by Alessandro Talevi, whose debut at the Festival della Valle d’Itria in 2013 with Crispino e la Comare was his first platform for recognition.
We are delighted with the successes of the Accademia del Belcanto “Rodolfo Celletti”: we have therefore decided to place our highest bets on productions by the young talents who come to Martina Franca to perfect their artistic development. We are proud of Un giorno di regno, or Il finto Stanislao by Giuseppe Verdi (19th and 30th July, Palazzo Ducale), conducted by the young Sesto Quatrini – a musician in whom we have great faith.
The second title for the young artists of the Accademia del Belcanto, Le donne vendicate by Niccolò Piccinni, marks our festival’s commitment to the glorious Apulian-Neapolitan school. This comic opera with libretto by Carlo Goldoni will be performed on the 16th, 21st, and 28th July in the new, much-enjoyed format of the Opera in masseria. Conducted by young Ferdinando Sulla, and directed by Giorgio Sangati, shining star of the Ronconi school of Milan’s Piccolo Teatro.
We commemorate 350 years from the birth of Claudio Monteverdi in the beautiful setting of the Chiostro di San Domenico, with a precious anthology from the Ottavo Libro dei Madrigali published in 1638 (his celebrated Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi). Together with the Ballo delle Ingrate – semi-dramatised choreography performed in Mantua on the occasion of the nuptials of Francesco Gonzaga and Margherita di Savoia – is the sublime Lamento della Ninfa. Music direction is by Antonio Greco: our resident musician for Baroque repertoire. Performances on the 15th, 18th, 22nd July, and 1st August.
We have a vibrant cast of young artists for Puccini’s comic masterpiece: Gianni Schicchi, in a lively chamber version in the Chiostro di San Domenico, on the 23rd, 27th, and 28th July.
The programme is crowned by the Belcanto concert, in the trusted hands of Diego Fasolis and I Barocchisti (Palazzo Ducale, 1st August), our popular Concerto per lo spirito, the Symphonic concert (3rd August), and the yearly appointments with the Fuori orario series, and with the Premio Celletti gifted each year to a major international figure of belcanto.
Alberto Triola
Artistic Director
Workshops on technique, style and performance of Italian Belcanto, and work experience in collaboration with the Festival della Valle d’Itria will be organized. For more information:
AKT. Photos by Barbara Luisi
From 4th till 29th June, 2017
Opening reception: June 4, 6:30 PM
From June 4 to June 29, Palazzo Vernazza in Lecce will host the exhibition AKT.Photographs by Barbara Luisi, curated by Manuela De Leonardis.
For the first time in Italy, and after the recent debut in New York, Barbara Luisi presents her series Vita Aeterna, which was shot in Apulia – from Brindisi to Fasano – in 2015. The series is the artist’s ode to olive trees as protagonists of a thousand-year old history and incommensurable human heritage, which is too often threatened by human kind.
The work in Vita Aeterna is closely linked to the previous series, Nude Nature (2007), Dreamland (2014) and a selection from Fragility (2013-2015), will be presented together with a preview of the new photographs AKT – Ageless Beauty (2017), which focuses on the mature human body.
The epidermis, nodosity and the apparent fragility of bodies of all ages and races that the photographer invites to sit for her, find a parallel full of references with animals and plants, the living beings of the natural world. Like trees, individuals also pose in groups of two, three and four. “Trees need a social life,” says Barbara Luisi, “the young ones are planted next to the older ones, to share vitality through their roots.”
Two sound installations, produced for the exhibition, accompany the black and white photographs.
On Sunday, June 4, at 6:30 PM, as part of the opening reception, Alessandro Taverna and Barbara Luisi will perform some music for piano and violin. A tasting of the oil produced by the Antica Masseria Brancati in Ostuni (Brindisi), as well as of local wines, will follow the musical performance.
On Saturday, June 10, at 6 PM, the artist will be available for book signing, followed by a concert-preview of the 43rd Festival della Valle d’Itria performed by students of the Accademy of Belcanto, “Rodolfo Celletti”, organized by Fondazione Paolo Grassi.
The exhibition concludes on Thursday, June 29 with two events. From 4 to 6 PM, the artist, Barbara Luisi, will lead a photographic shooting, “A Study of the Skin,” which is open to all and realized in collaboration with Digimedia Production. Following the shooting, there will be a panel discussion on the state of the art of photography, coordinated by the association Positivo Diretto, from 6:30 to 7:30 PM. Quarta Caffè will sponsor a coffee break between the two events.
Barbara Luisi was born in Munich, she lives and works between New York, Zurich, and Italy. At the age of nine she began studying the violin. After graduating from the Munich Arts and Music High school, she studied violin at Hochschule fur Musik und Theater in Munich. She performed professionally for many years in several leading European orchestras: the Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre du Capitol de Toulouse, Bayerische Staatsoper and she was first violinist in the “Pocci String Quartet.” Fascinated with the dark room processing, she started to experiment with photography at the age of seventeen. Portraiture, often associated with theatre and music, has been one of her favorite genres, along with nude, still life, and nocturnal photography. She has studied and worked with such photographers as Eikoh Hosoe, Art Streiber, Michael Grecco and Jock Sturges.
Among her most recent solo exhibitions are: 2016 – Fragility, Acta International, Rome (curated by M. de Leonardis); 2015 – Florence After Nightfall, Teatro d’Opera, Florence; Dreamland, Glorietta Gallery, Beirut; Night on Earth, New York University, New York; 2014 – ŒUVRES RÉCENTES, Museum “Maison Européenne de la Photographie”, Paris; Night and Nude, Emmeotto Gallery, Rome; Dreamland, Auditorium Paolo Grassi Foundation, Martina Franca. She is the author of photographic books, Nude Nature (Böhlau, 2008), Glühende Nacht (Böhlau, 2009), Pearls, Tears of the Sea (Böhlau, 2011), and Dreamland (Contrasto, 2014).
The exhibition is sponsored by: Comune di Lecce, Distretto Puglia Creativa, Accademia del Belcanto Rodolfo Celletti, Fondazione Paolo Grassi, Festival della Valle d’Itria.
Technical partners: Antica Masseria Brancuti, Digimedia Production, FL Parfums, Quarta Caffè.
AKT, a limited edition book will be available at the exhibition. (Italian/English- Graphic design by Giordano Santoro / Drusticamente).
Palazzo Vernazza
Vico Vernazza
73100 Lecce
(free admission)