The programme of the 2016 edition of the festival was put together with maestro Fabio Luisi, the music director of the Festival della Valle d’Itria. The programme of the 2016 edition of the festival was put together with maestro Fabio Luisi, the music director of the Festival della Valle d’Itria. It is entirely set within the three-year project presented last year at the Ministry, and it clearly confirms the Festival’s identity. The outline presents a few diversions, but remains consistent with the kind of research the Festival promotes, focusing on the 17th century, the Apulian-Neapolitan school, and 19th century Belcanto.
The new bill is dedicated to Giovanni Paisiello, one of the most emblematic names amongst those Apulian musicians who, thanks to their professional training in Naples, were able to reach their success on a European level. 2016 in fact marks the bicentenary of the death of this composer from Taranto. The Festival opens therefore with La grotta di Trofonio, a Neapolitan-flavoured comedy. The score renders the revolutionary features with which the comic genre shuffled the ways and etiquette of late 18th century Italian melodrama. The co-production with the Teatro San Carlo di Napoli – the second in two years – emphasises the value of this project aimed at broadening the offer at Martina Franca, and affirms the extent of the Festival’s endeavours to engage with some of the major Italian music institutions. Giuseppe Grazioli and Alfonso Antoniozzi sign off the music and direction respectively.
Baccanaliby Agostino Steffani will be staged at the Chiostro di San Domenico – by now our favourite stage for our Baroque productions. It is the second single-act work by the illustrious Venetian composer, and Martina Franca brings it to life after last year’s first La lotta di Ercole ed Acheloo. Once again, the production will see the debut of young artists from the Accademia Celletti. They will also have the chance to perform at the Palazzo Ducale: the Festival’s music director will guide them from the podium in an emblematic opera from the Belcanto repertoire: Mozart’s Così fan tutte. The choice is perhaps partly eccentric, both in terms of composer and in terms of the field of opera history. But the universally-recognised musical and dramatic values, the thematic analogies with Paisiello’s opening opera, Mozart’s self-proclaimed debt to him, and the undoubted educational potential at play, are all elements which pointed us towards this choice, of which Rodolfo Celletti had always been an advocate. The opera will be in semi-staged form, with Juliette Deschamps curating the acting.
The key piece for the 42nd edition of the Festival is Francesca da Rimini by Saverio Mercadante. For reasons which modern musicology is still attempting to uncover, this work never saw the stage. The ambitious score has a very broad scope: it is therefore perfect for Fabio Luisi, the best conductor to highlight its musical merits, as was the case for Mayr’s
Medea in Corinto. The tout-court dramatic action leaves room for incisiveness and rhythm, with well-measured forms and proportions. In order to emphasise the exemplary dramaturgy of the classic model of proto-Romantic drama, this year we welcome the return to Martina Franca of a great maestro if Italian theatre: Pier Luigi Pizzi, who previously brought us an unforgettable Grande Dûchesse de Gerolstein.
The world premiere on the 30th July 2016 is a real “musical event”, as it is an unknown, posthumous opera by a very well-known author in the history of opera. For this reason we were keen to count on these two internationally-renown figures in the operatic world. The cast is talented, and young just like the characters of Dante’s Canto V of his Divine Comedy. This year’s “Opera in masseria” is also dedicated to Paisiello. His irresistible Don Chisciotte – to mark Cervantes’ anniversary – will be set in amongst the tables and diners, where the phantasmagorical, surreal adventures of the hidalgo will acquire further fascination and…flavour, thanks to the specialities offered by the food and wine of the Valle d’Itria. Together with music director Fabio Luisi we are working with enthusiasm and determination also on the projects for the next seasons. Our aims follow Belcanto, and Baroque music theatre, with an eye constantly open for 20th century ideas and contemporary gems. All these factors together have contributed significantly to consolidate and revamp the identity of our Festival
Alberto Triola – Artistic Director