-The Italian maestro will conduct the opening concert as well as the revival of the Donizetti opera Il castello di Kenilworth

October 2018
After appearing at La Scala in Milan (Il pirata), San Francisco Opera (Roberto Devereux) and La Fenice in Venice (Semiramide), the Italian conductor Riccardo Frizza will make his debut as the splendid new musical director of the Bergamo Donizetti Festival (Italy) on the 22nd November, in the famous bel-canto composer´s city of birth. He will be conducting the festival’s opening concert, which features some of the most renowned stars that specialise in the style such as the soprano Jessica Pratt, the mezzo-soprano Daniela Barcellona and the tenors Levy Sekgapane and Xabier Anduaga. The concert will take place at the Bergamo Teatro Sociale and the programme includes pieces by Rossini and Donizetti.
Two days later, Riccardo Frizza will premiere the long-forgotten opera by the Bergamo composer, Il castello di Kenilworth (performances on the 24th and 30th November and 2nd December), a great event on the world opera scene, as this opera was particularly loved by Donizetti himself. One of the main characters is the English Queen Elizabeth I, a recurring figure in the opera world. Jessica Pratt, Carmela Remigio, Xabier Anduaga, Stefan Pop and Lorenzo Barbieri will perform in the revival, among other singers, in a new Donizetti Festival production which will be directed by the Spanish actress and director María Pilar Pérez Aspa.
After his engagements in the world Donizetti capital, Frizza will return to the Barcelona Gran Teatre del Liceu in December to conduct Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri (performances are on the 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd December), where he will take the helm of a double cast of revered specialists in the art of singing Rossini.

-The Italian conductor will be absorbing himself in Rossini tragedy as he prepares to conduct one of the most complex operas written by the famous Italian composer

Riccardo Frizza returns to La Fenice in Venice this October with Rossini repertoire, once again, after having conducted two great operas by other great bel-canto composers. At the Teatro alla Scala in Milan he closed the 2017/18 season at the helm of the opera Il pirata a new production which brought the Bellini opera back to this theatre after more than forty years’ absence. At the San Francisco Opera (USA), meanwhile, he has opened the new season with great success by conducting Roberto Devereux in September, one of Donizetti’s masterpieces, which counted two American stars, the soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and the mezzo Jamie Barton among the cast (performances will continue until the 27th September). Now it is Rossini’s turn, as Frizza submerges himself in one of the most demanding operas of the Italian tragic repertoire: Semiramide. Performances take place at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on the 19th, 21th, 23th, 25th and 27th October and the cast will be led by great experts in the style: Jessica Pratt (Semiramide), Teresa Iervolino (Arsace), Alex Esposito (Assur) and Enea Scala (Idreno) in a production directed by Cecilia Ligorio.
Frizza’s later engagements include the opening concert at the Bergamo Donizetti Festival, (Italy, Donizetti´s city of birth), of which he is the music director. The concert features the soprano Jessica Pratt, the mezzo Daniela Barcellona and the tenors Levy Sekgapane and Xabier Anduaga and will take place on 22nd November. Two days later on the 24th November the maestro will also conduct the little-known Donizetti opera Il castello di Kenilworth, an opera concerning the English Queen Elizabeth I, which will be a key event on the international opera scene.