La Fenice in Venice, the theater of joy

There is a place that embodies the spirit of Venice, which is the center of a city and international community stubbornly in love with the city. To live it is to celebrate a ritual made of beauty and awareness. Until the La Fenice theatre it will be the culture industry, the “enlightened factory” of performing art in an increasingly uninhabited historical centre, Venice will have a soul. Maybe for this on 2 September Cartier organized a concert/party in the theater inspired by the figure of Casanovadedicated to Venice and the Venetians. And this is why the Teatro La Fenice returns to Piazza San Marco on Saturday evening with Beethoven’s IX, a monument to Western civilization that will become one of the refrains of the coming years. Sold out among the oldest cafes in Europe with VIP front rows by order (from Ottavia Piccolo to Diego Dalla Palma, from the world of industry to that of literature), television coverage in the suggestion of sunset in the lagoon.

With fourteen opera titles, a symphonic season divided into nineteen dates, major international events such as the New Year’s Concert and the summer concert in the drawing room of Piazza San Marcowith almost 6 million euros in takings for 2022 productions and 7 million expected for 2023, and one million three hundred thousand euros in guided tours alonethe Fenice is not only one of the most exclusive stages in the world but also a musical museum par excellence. For this the seasonal presentation it is not an indispensable lagoon rite that mixes ancient patrician families and journalists, agents and musicians with the world of the university and Venetian foundations, from sports associations such as the Compagnia della Vela to international sponsors.

Superintendent Fortunato Ortombina and general manager Andrea Erri talked about the new season on 4 July in the Sala Apollonea Grande. And new projects for a truly inclusive theatre. From sustainability (the Fenice will soon have a new mobile bridge in Riva Callas, a new ramp and an internal lift for the disabled) to the project for the City of Music in Marghera, a new pole on the mainland with warehouses, rehearsal rooms and exhibition spaces.

In short, there are the world spotlights of the New Year’s concert which this year lines up the tenor Fabio Sartori with the soprano Eleonora Buratto conducted by Fabio Luisi on live television and there is an opera program with many rediscoveries of the twentieth century, a season symphony that doubles and sees the Venetian debut of Ivor Bolton with Mozart’s Requiem and Kent Nagano with Haydn, the Republic Day celebrated by Daniele Rustioni with Beethoven and the return of Myung-Whun Chung with three concerts including Verdi’s Requiem.

The work opens with Les Contes D’Hoffmann second Damiano Michielettoset up in co-production with theSydney Opera House. Among the securities of interest Les Saisons, new staging of La Fenice with Opèra Royal de Versailles and Malandain Ballet Biarritz, free reworking not only of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons but also of the work of Giovanni Antonio Guido, Genoese violinist and virtuoso of Vivaldi’s time. But Vivaldi will return to the Malibran with the staging of Tamerlano directed by Diego Fasolis. On the bill, the homage to the hundredth anniversary of Puccini’s death with La Bohème and, in September, Turandot. Then an unpublished Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito with contributions from Arturo Toscanini, repertoire titles such as Don Giovanni and Barber of Seville but also works of the historic twentieth century such as Maria Egiziaca by Ottorino Respighi directed by Pierluigi Pizzi and the homage to Gian Francesco Malipiero (whose 50th anniversary this year occurs) with the work “Life is a dream”. In September, a diptych dedicated to the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Luigi Nono and the one hundred and fifty of Arnold Schönberg. Great anticipation for the opera Marco Polo, with costumes by Roberto Cappuccicommissioned to the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory of Music for the 700th anniversary of the birth of the author of the Milione.
Back to the project Phoenix Film Festival: on August 24 at Hotel Excelsior the Fenice constructs a prelude to the Film Art Exhibition with a concert entirely dedicated to the musical. The protagonists are the theater choir directed by Alfonso Caiani.

And for December there will be tributes to the centenary of the birth of Maria Callas, who made her debut in Venice in 1947 with Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and exactly ten years later, in 1957 at the Hotel Danieli, in a reception organized in her honor by Elsa Maxwell , will meet Aristotle Onassis.