A special opera concert organized in cooperation with the Foundation Luciano Pavarotti¸ as homage to the memory of the great composer Giuseppe Verdi, celebrating the bicentenary of the birth.
Remembering the great difficulties Luciano Pavarotti had faced at the beginning of his career, a way always steep and hard he always supported young singers giving them the chance to share the stage with him.

Complementary event: Verdi’s piano
Exhibition of Verdi’s personal belongings and relics including his famous concert piano Erard 1870, which he used to compose the 3rd act of “Othello” and parts of “Falstaff”. This piano, recently restored thanks to the mastery of skilled experts, has been kindly allowed for this event by Montecatini’s Academy of Art .

After nearly 36 years from September 16th 1977, when Maria Callas was found dead in her house in Paris, her memory is still alive in the hearts of the great opera lovers all over the world. Her myth is even growing.
An extraordinary singer and actress with undisputed charm and irresistible charisma. For her great many fans she was absolutely fantastic, simply “divine “. Montecatini Opera Festival gives you a great opportunity to listen to her most successful arias, performed by the splendid Greek soprano Dimitra Theodossiou. Close your eyes and get ready to dream…

Verdi was music, homeland and women lover.
In contrast to classic opera, where female figure represented the stereotype of romantic heroine, languid and, devotee, in Verdi musical theatre happens a real revolution.
From "courtesan" Violetta who lost everything for the man she loves until dead, to Aida, united in love to Radames but separated for the different origin of Gilda, exclusive beneficiary of the love of her father to the sorceress gipsy Azucena: an extraordinary frame of female characters really complex but current, real women who Italian Opera is rich in.

A journey through the real masterpieces of the Neapolitan classical song, attractive and alive even after 500 years’ life, still regarded as the symbol of Italian great music all over the world. This concert will be like a walk along the gulf of Naples, through the narrow lanes “abbascio ‘o porto” touching Marechiaro, Santa Lucia and going up the Vesuvio by funicular, accompanied by unforgettable melodies, still so popular and well known. Their success is also due to great singers, like Enrico Caruso, Placido Domingo, Josè Carreras, Andrea Bocelli, Luciano Pavarotti, who have given extraordinary performances of Neapolitan songs, keeping them so famous and loved by everybody.

Event in collaboration with Fondazione CARIPT

In the intercultural relationships between Italy and Russia art and particularly music has always represented a strong link (trait-d’union) between these two countries, which have a lot in common though very distant geographically. Both of them have a great number of extraordinary works of art thanks to the many highly gifted artists who have lived there. Both of them can boast great music schools and brilliant musicians in addition to artistic masterpieces. Russia has some of the oldest famous theatres, often realized by Italian architects, who for long used to go to Russia to share their creativity and their skills. St. Petersburg itself, considered the pearl of the world culture, shows many examples of artistic Italian influence.
Being 2014 the year of Italian – Russian Tourism it has seemed appropriate to plan a project aiming at consolidating the previous artistic links between Italy and Russia and developing new forms of collaboration through a better knowledge of each other’s huge cultural heritage.

In the intercultural relationships between Italy and Russia art and particularly music has always represented a strong link (trait-d’union) between these two countries, which have a lot in common though very distant geographically. Both of them have a great number of extraordinary works of art thanks to the many highly gifted artists who have lived there. Both of them can boast great music schools and brilliant musicians in addition to artistic masterpieces. Russia has some of the oldest famous theatres, often realized by Italian architects, who for long used to go to Russia to share their creativity and their skills. St. Petersburg itself, considered the pearl of the world culture, shows many examples of artistic Italian influence.
Being 2014 the year of Italian – Russian Tourism it has seemed appropriate to plan a project aiming at consolidating the previous artistic links between Italy and Russia and developing new forms of collaboration through a better knowledge of each other’s huge cultural heritage.

Maria José Siri was born in Uruguay where she started studying instruments and folk singing as a child. She began her singing studies at ENAL Montevideo and subsequently completed them at Paris Conservatory and in Nice with Ileana Cotrubas. Before moving to Italy in 2006 she made her first steps on the opera stages of her native country and in Argentina, where amongst other roles she interpreted Violetta in La Traviata at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. Siri made her debut in Italy in 2008 as Anna in Puccini’s Le Villi in Mantova.

A proper tribute to one of the greatest opera composers of history: Giacomo Puccini, beloved composer by audiences all around the world, who concludes the golden age of the opera, an all Italian invention that helped us to be known in the whole world. The evening's program includes arias that illustrate the entire production of the Master, from La Bohème, to Tosca, to the uncomplete Turandot, music that still resonates everywhere always causing new heartbeats in whom is listening ...

An iconic work by Puccini is “Madama Butterfly,” a tale of love and betrayal set in Japan. The opera tells the story of Cio-Cio-San, a young geisha who falls in love with an American naval officer. Puccini's music expertly weaves together Eastern and Western influences, creating a rich and evocative score that transports the audience to a different time and place. The tragic ending of “Madama Butterfly” has made it one of the most emotionally powerful operas ever written.

Veterans from the successes in the “temples” of the opera world, as the “Teatro della Scala” in Milan, Covent Garden in London and the Metropolitan in New York, here are two formidable performers of the international scene, exceptionally together for an exclusive concert in Montecatini.
The program, in which the protagonists are going to face their warhorses, is tailored to exalt their skills of interpreters, extraordinarily intense and refined.
It begins with some of the masterpieces of Mozart’s musical pillars of the XVIII century, to get to the erotic passion of Carmen, a work that despite the lack of the initial success today is one of the most represented in the world, all through the force of Verdi, the limpid beauty of the melodies of Bellini and the overwhelming frenzy of the world’s most famous barber.
A concert not to be missed!

In the Year of Italy-Russian Tourism an extraordinary closure event of the "St. Petersburg-Montecatini Opera Festival”. Accompanied by the ensemble of the Hermitage Theatre directed by FABIO MASTRANGELO, by far the most famous and beloved Italian conductor of the contemporary Russia, important Italian artists alongside stars of the most famous theaters of Petersburg as the Bolshoi and the Mikhailovsky. Exceptionally on stage, Olesya TERTYCHNAIA, first flute of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and GUNTHER SANIN, first Violin of the Arena of Verona Orchestra with a precious violin Gofrieller Venice 1712.

Event in collaboration with Fondazione CARIPT

Many are the characters of the opera of the 19th century that have profoundly marked the collective imagination and popular culture, as much or more than the narrative.
Exponents of a "romance" on the edge of pathological, certainly deadly for women, though these characters imposed on the stages and in our minds thanks to the ungovernable leadership and the powerful sense of the extreme.
It’s the case of Othello, who stabs himself with a dagger of his wife Desdemona and dies kissing her for the last time; Leonora who dies in the arms of the man she loves and in the agony of death confesses that she poisoned her-self to remain faithful; Aida and Radames, who calmly deal with the cruel death in the crypt beneath the Temple of Vulcan; Tosca, whom upset about the shooting of "his" Mario she thrown her-self from the ramparts of Castel Sant'Angelo; Cio-Cio-San, who denied life by choosing to commit suicide and leaving her husband the fruit of their love; Carmen killed with a stab from Don Jose blinded by anger...
And those figures arrived till us and live "forever."