– The Italian conductor returns to the United States, this time with Roberto Devereux

July 2018
After bringing the Bellini opera Il pirata, which had not been performed at the Teatro alla Scala for six decades, back to the famous Milanese opera house in a new production, the Italian conductor Riccardo Frizza will once again submerge himself in Romantic bel-canto. This will be next September, when he will conduct Roberto Devereux, one of Donizetti´s masterpieces, and a fundamental part of the composer´s “Tudor Trilogy.”  Frizza is an acclaimed specialist in Italian opera who regularly performs at some of the most important theatres in the world. He will conduct Roberto Devereux for San Francisco Opera and the cast includes great singers such as the renowned soprano Sondra Radvanovsky in the role of  Elisabetta and, as Sara the Duchess of Nottingham, the American mezzo Jamie Barton, who is hailed as one of the greatest new discoveries in opera. Performances will take place on the 8th, 11th, 14th, 18th, 23rd and 27th September at the War Memorial Opera House in the Californian city, and is produced by the Canadian Opera Company and directed by Stephen Lawless.

Among the maestro´s other engagements later in the season are Semiramide (Rossini) at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice (19th, 25th and 27th October) and the inaugural concert at the Donizetti Festival in Bergamo (Italy, the city where Donizetti was born, 22nd November), as Frizza is the artistic director of the festival. At the same festival he will also conduct the revival of the rare Donizetti opera Il castello di Kenilworth which has Elizabeth I of England as its main character (24th November).

-The Italian maestro will conduct the Bellini opera, which has not been performed in the Milanese opera house since 1958.

June 2018
It will be one of the big events of the year. The opera Il pirata, by Vincenzo Bellini, will finally be performed again in June and July at the opera house where it had its world premiere in 1827, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, this time under the watchful eye of the renowned Italian conductor Riccardo Frizza. The opera, which has not been staged at La Scala since Antonino Votto conducted Maria Callas in the lead role in 1958, will be revived as conceived by the maestro Frizza, a great expert in Bellini operas and all the composers of the style.  Frizza is also the musical director of the Bergamo Donizetti Festival (Italy). He made his debut at La Scala in 2013 with Verdi´s first opera, Oberto– and he considers Il pirata “a true and little known jewel of Bellini bel-canto. The opera had its world premiere in La Scala and it was a debut for Bellini, who included some novelties which he would later go on to develop in Norma (1831). Il pirata has some magnificent moments, such as the impressive scene of Imogene´s madness with which Bellini concludes the opera after he eliminated the original final scene in which she commits suicide. The technical difficulties of the writing are a real challenge for any singer who dares to take on this tough score”.

Frizza will be returning to the podium at La Scala after having conducted Norma (Bellini) there this same season as well as L’elisir d’amore (Donizetti) at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Luisa Miller (Verdi) at the Zurich Opernhaus, Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini) at the Paris Opéra National, La Traviata (Verdi) at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Falstaff (Verdi) at the Teatro Regio in Parma and Aida (Verdi) at the Macerata Festival.

Il pirata will open in Milan on the 29th June and there will be other performances on the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 14th, 17th and 19th July. It will be a new production directed by the Spanish director Emilio Sagi with soprano Sonya Yoncheva in the role of Imogene (Roberta Mantegna in the 14^th and 19^th July performances), a Gualtiero sung by Piero Pretti and Ernesto sung by Nicola Alaimo.