Festival Di Caracalla 2023
Festival Di Caracalla 2023
Opera, dance, cinema, theatre, magnificent symphonic music, jazz and pop, the Teatro dell’Opera’s summer programme becomes a festival: the Caracalla Festival 2023, with 50 events from 30 May to 10 August. The offer is expanded, but also the spaces available are increased: to the usual 4,500-seat arena, the Teatro Grande near the ancient Baths, is added the Teatro del Portico, in the area of the so-called Temple of Jupiter, suitable for hosting new and different kinds of performances.
Many famous artists are featured in the programme: Myung-Whun Chung for the symphonic music; directors Damiano Michieletto and Lorenzo Mariani for the opera; Roberto Bolle and Jacopo Tissi for the ballet, and of course the Corps de Ballet of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma directed by Eleonora Abbagnato; Moni Ovadia for the theatre; Stefano Di Battista, Giovanni and Matteo Cutello for jazz music; singers such as Antonello Venditti, Francesco De Gregori, Fiorella Mannoia with Danilo Rea, Andrea Bocelli and, for the first time in Caracalla, Zucchero, Negramaro and Massimo Ranieri.
In the year of ‘VIVA Verdi’, the initiative promoted by the Ministry of Culture for the preservation, promotion and valorisation of Villa Verdi, the house-museum of the composer in Sant’Agata di Villanova sull’Arda, two masterpieces of the so-called “popular trilogy” are scheduled. Whereas the 2023 Caracalla Festival will focus on Verdi, the 2024 edition will be dedicated to Puccini, as a tribute to the centenary of his death.
From 21 July to 9 August, Giuseppe Verdi’s La traviata returns to the stage in the set designed in 2018 by Lorenzo Mariani, who sets the Parisian story, based on La dame aux camélias by Dumas’ son, in the dolce vita years of the 1960s, paying tribute to Federico Fellini’s Rome. Up on the podium goes Paolo Arrivabeni. On stage there is Francesca Dotto, who has already performed Violetta several times at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma; there will be also Christopher Maltman and Marco Caria as Giorgio Germont; Giovanni Sala and Alessandro Scotto di Luzio as Alfredo Germont.
From the “Dolce Vita” to the “malavita”, with Verdi’s second masterpiece, Rigoletto, staged from 3 to 10 August in a production by Damiano Michieletto that sets it in a fictional criminal world. Produced for the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, it was staged in the summer of 2020 at the Circo Massimo, after months of theatre closures due to the pandemic. Michieletto on this occasion makes some changes to his original project to match the needs of a different open-air space, the one at Caracalla. On the podium goes Riccardo Frizza, while the main singers are Roberto Frontali, already Rigoletto in 2020 at the Circo Massimo, Nina Minasyan (Gilda), Piero Pretti (Duke of Mantua), as well as Martina Belli and Riccardo Zanellato who perform again as in 2020 as Maddalena and Sparafucile respectively.
The programme of ballet opens with Strictly Gershwin from 1 to 4 July, a joyful and overwhelming musical featuring étoiles, principal dancers, soloists and the Corps de Ballet of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, directed by Eleonora Abbagnato. The show by the choreographer and director Derek Deane, directed by Michael England and with the pianist Alessandro Taverna as soloist, is a tribute to George Gershwin and his music, which succeeded in portraying the aspirations and spirits of an entire generation in the fantastic 1930s, with Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire and the glamour of the Golden Age.
Among fragments of Rhapsody in Blue and other pieces from An American in Paris, passing through the immortal Summertime, alternating moments of classical and modern dance, with tip tap and ballroom atmospheres. All this in a spectacular stage set-up, with dancers, musicians and singers gathered on the same stage. To make the show even more special is the contribution of Laura Biagiotti with the design and creation of the costumes.
It is still great dancing with the traditional evenings of Roberto Bolle and Friends, with a total of three performances from 11 to 13 July, and with the Grand Gala on Sunday 23rd July featuring guest stars such as Maia Makhateli and Jacopo Tissi combined with the étoiles Alessandra Amato, Rebecca Bianchi, Susanna Salvi, Alessio Rezza and the first ballet dancers Claudio Cocino and Michele Satriano, soloists and the Corps de Ballet of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. On the podium of the Orchestra del Teatro dell’Opera there will be Alvise Casellati.
The unmissable events of pop music begin on 30 May. On the stage of the Teatro Grande will be Zucchero on 30, 31 May, 2, 3 and 4 June, Fiorella Mannoia and Danilo Rea on 1 June, Venditti-De Gregori on 5, 7, 8 and 15 June, Andrea Bocelli on 10 June, Negramaro on 13, 14 and 16 June and Massimo Ranieri on 24 July, also at 9 p.m.
About the Festival Di Caracalla
There’s no better way to spend a balmy summer night in Rome than enjoying an opera, ballet or concert at the Baths of Caracalla. A cultural hub and vibrant social spot back in Ancient Rome, the Baths were the equivalent of a community day spa, where Romans would go to bathe and socialize. It was a place to entertain and to be entertained. Fast-forward thousands of years later, and the ruins have become an open-air, improvised stage that welcomes thousands of locals and tourists every summer.
The music festival Caracalla Festival takes place in June-August in the famous Roman baths of Caracalla. The second largest public baths, built in the early 3rd century by order of the Roman emperor Antonino Caracalla, are now the most important archaeological site in Italy. In addition, it is one of the largest open-air theaters in Europe, where since 1937 the Music Festival at the Baths of Caracalla (Caracalla Festival) has been held.
The majestic ruins of the Baths of Caracalla have become a natural backdrop for such great operas as Aida, Carmen, Tosca, Nabucco, Turandot. The spacious stage with a hall for 20,000 seats turned into the main theater stage of the Roman summer. Over the years, the voices of Maria Callas and Beniamino Gigli sounded here, the first performance of three legendary tenors took place: Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti. In 1993, theatrical performances were stopped for some time due to restoration work, but already at the beginning of the new millennium, the performances of the summer musical seasons resumed, again attracting the world's best performers to the festival.
The basis of the festival program in the Baths of Caracalla is the performances of the Rome Opera (Teatro dell'Opera di Roma).
