Biggest ever Rossini Festival?

According to the press release:

The 42nd edition of the Rossini Opera Festival will be held in Pesaro from the 9th to the 22nd August 2021. The programme, which has never been so rich, will include four new productions (Moïse et Pharaon, Elisabetta regina d’Inghilterra, Il signor Bruschino and Stabat Mater), Il viaggio a Reims by the Accademia Rossiniana “Alberto Zedda”, eight concerts and the final Gala Rossini, reaching a total of 25 performances.

The Festival will be inaugurated on Monday 9th August at the Vitrifrigo Arena with Moïse et Pharaon, with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI and the Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso conducted by Giacomo Sagripanti, staged by Pier Luigi Pizzi assisted by Massimo Gasparon, with choreography by Gheorghe Iancu. The cast consists of Roberto Tagliavini, Erwin Schrott, Andrew Owens, Eleonora Buratto, Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, Alexey Tatarintsev, Matteo Roma, Monica Bacelli and Nicolò Donini. Three repeat performances will take place on the 12th, 16th and 19th August.

This will be followed by Il signor Bruschino at the Teatro Rossini on the 10th August, with the Filarmonica Gioachino Rossini conducted by
Michele Spotti; a production conceived by Barbe & Doucet, with lighting by Guy Simard. The cast of singers includes Marina Monzò, Pietro Spagnoli, Giorgio Caoduro, Jack Swanson, Gianluca Margheri, Chiara Tirotta, Manuel Amati and Enrico Iviglia. Further performances will take place on the 13th, 15th and 18th August. The opera is a co-production with the Royal Opera House Muscat (Oman).

Back at the Vitrifrigo Arena, on the 11th August Elisabetta regina d’Inghilterra will be performed, conducted by Evelino Pidò, with the Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI and the Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso, staged by Davide Livermore, with scenery by Giò Forma, costumes by Gianluca Falaschi, lighting by Nicolas Bovey and videodesign by D-Wok. The cast will include Karine Deshayes, Sergey Romanovsky, Salome Jicia, Sonia Prina, Barry Banks and Valentino Buzza. Repeat performances on the 14th, 17th and 21st August. The opera is a co-production with the Fondazione Teatro Massimo, Palermo.

The last new production is the Stabat Mater in a staged version, to be performed at the Vitrifrigo Arena on the 20th August, conducted by Jader Bignamini with the Filarmonica Gioachino Rossini and the Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso, the staging, scenery and costumes by Massimo Gasparon. The solo singers will be Giuliana Gianfaldoni, Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, Ruzil Gatin and Riccardo Fassi.

The 2021 ROF will close on Sunday 22nd August with the Gala Rossini, which will inaugurate the new Auditorium Scavolini, a multi-purpose venue that can host a thousand people for Operas and Concerts and two thousand people for sport events. The Auditorium is a fruit of the restoration of the old PalaFestival, which up to the year 2005 offered some of the most important productions in the Festival’s history: these include the Matilde di Shabran which in 1996 framed the Pesaro début of Juan Diego Flórez, the 25th anniversary of which will be
celebrated by this concert. Michele Spotti will conduct the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI and the Chorus of the Teatro Ventidio Basso. Juan Diego Flórez will be supported by Eleonora Buratto, Salome Jicia, Marina Monzò, Sonia Prina, Pietro Spagnoli, Sergey Romanovsky, Giorgio Caoduro, Jack Swanson, Matteo Roma, Manuel Amati, Nicolò Donini.