-The Italian maestro will be conducting a Strauss gala in Hungary and a concert dedicated to Beethoven in Italy

January 2020

The Italian conductor Riccardo Frizza will begin the year with two symphonic programmes in Hungary and Italy, where he will revisit masterpieces by both Richard Strauss and Ludwig van Beethoven.

On the 15th January, the conductor Frizza, musical director of the Bergamo Donizetti Festival, travels to Hungary to take the podium at the Müpa Budapest Béla Bartók National Concert Hall.  He will conduct the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in a programme entirely dedicated to Richard Strauss, and three jewels from among his compositions: firstly the unparalelled Vier letzte Lieder sung by the soprano Andrea Rost, who will be joined later by Kinga Kriszta and Andrea Szántó to revisit one of the high points in the history of opera, the final scene of Der Rosenkavalier.  The marvellous world of Strauss and his infinite melody, which is so well-represented by these incredible pieces, will be rounded off by the spectacular symphonic poem Eine Alpensinfonie.

Later, on the 29th January, Riccardo Frizza will travel to the city of his birth, Brescia, where he will conduct the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.  He will be opening the concert season with three works by Ludwig van Beethoven and celebrating the beginning of the year of the 250^th anniversary of the great composer´s birth. The programme includes the Egmont Overture in F minor, Op. 84, the violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, and the popular 5^th Symphony in C minor, Op. 67, a thorough overview of three facets of the genius German composer. Frizz will be working with the acclaimed Italian-Rumanian violinist Anna Tifu as the soloist in the concerto, one of the greatest musicians of her generation who came to fame in 2007 when she won the prestigious George Enescu competition in Bucarest.

After these symphonic engagements, Frizza will turn his attention to operas, including La Sonnambula in Budapest, Lucrezia Borgia in Piacenza and Ravenna and Il viaggio a Reims in Cologne, before returning to the United States for Il barbiere di Siviglia at Dallas Opera.

– The Italian conductor returns to Chicago in December to give a Donizetti concert with Sondra Radvanovsky and then to Paris for Bellini´s Il Pirata.

November 2019

After his intense and very successful activity as the musical director of the Bergamo Donizetti Opera Festival (Italy), where he conducted the Opening Gala and a new, critically acclaimed production of the opera Lucrezia Borgia, Riccardo Frizza will travel to the United States in December.  There he will conduct three concerts featuring the American-Canadian soprano Sondra Radvanovsky at the Lyric Opera Chicago.   Entitled The Three Queens, both artists will revisit some of the most emblematic scenes from the Donizetti operas Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux, an absolute tour de force which will take place on the 1^st, 4^th and 7^th December in a semi-staged production directed by Matthew Ozawa, with Frizza at the helm of the Lyric Opera Orchestra and Choir.

Later, on the 16^th and 19^th December, the Italian conductor will see out the year in Paris with two performances (in concert format) of Bellini´s Il pirata, at the Palais Garnier for the Opéra National in the French capital.  A top-flight cast will be singing this Bellini opera which Frizza revived two seasons ago for a new production at La Scala in Milan: Sondra Radvanovsky will take the difficult role of Imogene, Michael Spyres is Gualtiero and Ludovic Tézier is Ernesto.

In 2020, among other upcoming engagements, Riccardo Frizza will conduct La Sonnambula at the Müpa in Budapest (February) and Lucrezia Borgia in Ravenna and Piacenza.