Returning to conduct the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini is always a great pleasure. This time, it’s an even greater satisfaction because I’m inaugurating the fourth edition of the Toscanini Festival, the tribute which the Foundation that bears the name of the legendary conductor has organized each summer since 2022 in Parma and some of the other most beautiful historical and artistic settings in the province.

Un ballo in maschera is an opera that I especially love. I have worked on it twice, both times outside Italy, and with a twenty-year gap in between. This production has enriched my Verdi catalogue: despite my reputation as a “Donizetti” conductor,

I’m looking forward to a March entirely devoted to symphonic works, thanks not just to the programmes I’ve chosen to prepare and the orchestras that I’ll be conducting, but also to its meaning for me at this time.

It is a pleasure to be conducting La Favorite, the work that inaugurated Donizetti Opera 2022, in Bilbao. The opera, which was well received by the audience and by the Italian and international press,