About the Rossini Opera Festival

Rossini Opera Festival is one of the most elite summer Italian festivals. The festival annually attracts fans to Pesaro Rossini's works from around the world. It has been held since 1980 on the birthplace of Rossini, in the small resort town of Pesaro on the Adriatic coast.

The festival is usually held in August and lasts 2–3 weeks.

The program of the Rossini Opera Festival, as a rule, includes 3 opera performances, each of which is repeated alternating 3-4 times, which is convenient for those who do not attend the whole festival, but only come for a few days.

The festival program is constantly replenished with rarely performed productions of Rossini's works, which are nowhere practically, except at the festival in Pesaro hear.

In addition, the festival hosts vocal evenings (concerti di belcanto). In recent years, masterpieces of sacred music such as “Little solemn mass”, “Stabat Mater”, “Messa di Gloria”.

Since its inception, the artistic direction of the Festival has been carried out by Alberto Dzedda, a worldwide recognized specialist in Rossini. Sometimes the maestro Alberto Dzedda himself stands behind the orchestra console.

The main attraction of the city is the house in which Gioacchino Rossini was born on February 29, 1792. Now there is a museum dedicated to life and work composer.

The first festival venues in Pesaro were the small cozy Rossini Theater (Teatro Rossini with 850 seats) and the Conservatorio di musica G. Rossini ”(Auditorium Pedrotti for 500 seats). Later they were joined by the Palafestival sports complex (1,500 seats), specially  converted for conducting opera performances. The Palafestival complex has excellent acoustics.

Since 2006, festival performances have also been held in conjunction with the romantic name Adriatic Arena. In recent years, Teatro Rossini and Adriatic Arena are the main theater venues, and on the stage of Auditorium Pedrotti there are solo concerts.

The festival traditionally presents new vocalists and conductors.

There has been a summer school at the festival for many years, the Accademia Rossiniana, in which Alberto Dzedda himself and the festival superintendent Gianfranco Mariotti, a great connoisseur of Rossini's art, take part. From 2001 to The results of the final concert, in which Alberto Dzedda's school participates, form a lineup of singers for the performance of Rossini's opera Journey to Reims.

Over the past 3 decades of its existence, such famous singers as: Moncerat Caballe, Cecilia Gasdia, performed at the Rossiniev Festival Marilyn Horn, Michele Pertuzi, Joyce Di Donato, Darina Such, June Anderson and Eva Podles, Gregory Kunde, Luciano Pavarotti, Patricia Ciofi, Juan Diego Flores, Cecilia Bartoli and others. By the way, Juan Diego Flores came to world fame in 1996 in Pesaro, when the singer replaced the ill performer of the main part in Rossini's opera Matilda di Shabran.

At the Rossini Opera Festival, in addition to Alberto Dzedda, in different years they conducted: Gianandrea Gavazzeni (maestro of the very first festival play “The Thief-Thief” in 1980), Claudio Abbado, Daniele Gatti, Riccardo Chai, Roberto Abbado, Guberstavo, Gubersto Renato Palumbo, Claudio Chimone, Gabriele Ferro, Donato Renzetti, Jesus Lopez Cobos, Vladimir Yurovsky, Denis Vlasenko.

Over the past few years, the Bologna Opera Orchestra and the Prague Chamber Choir have become regular participants in the Rossiniev Festival.

The Rossini Opera Festival, according to the overall musical rating, takes almost the first place among all Italian festivals held in the summer.