The Barga opera festival is a very important international cultural event which takes place in the medieval town of Barga, livening up the summer of the entire Serchio valley. The artistic project at the base of the festival’s programming, aims to recover and research less known operas from the baroque period and present them alongside modern and even contemporary operas. Such an approach aims at evaluating the artistic patrimony of operatic music before and after the classical repertoires of the 1800’s. Therefore there have been many contemporary pieces included in the Barga Opera Festivals that have been performed for the very first time on stage both nationally or internationally. In addition the festival has also often featured first contemporary performances of rediscovered works.
INAUDITA PROJECT
First ever performance
26 June, Cloister of S. Francesco, Barga
27 June, Banca del Monte di Lucca Auditorium, Piazza S. Martino, Lucca
In partnership with the Cluster Association.
Held by Francesco Filidei and Franck Bedrossian (both winners of the Prix de Rome with commissions by the best of contemporary music ensembles). Franck Bedrossian is a lecturer in Composition at the University of Berkeley, in California, USA. Francesco Filidei is a concert organist.
10 composers will be selected from a competition that closes in March (in 2014 there were 34 applicants) and commissioned to write a piece of music for an ensemble of flute, saxophone, violin and violoncello, that will be presented and performed by the Multilaterale Ensemble.
The Multilaterale Ensemble will play one of more of the commissions from among the contestants for works that will be performed by the Ensemble in other concerts.
Multilaterale Ensemble:
Matteo Cesari – flute,
Miguel Angel Lorente – saxophone
Antoine Maisonhaute – violin,
Severine Ballon – violoncello.
Details:
From 27 JUNE to 12 JULY at BARGA, from 15 to 19 JULY at BAGNONE
INAUDITA PROJECT
First ever performance
26 June, Cloister of S. Francesco, Barga
27 June, Banca del Monte di Lucca Auditorium, Piazza S. Martino, Lucca
Ensemble Multilaterale:
Matteo Cesari – flute,
Miguel Angel Lorente – saxophone
Antoine Maisonhaute – violin,
Severine Ballon – violoncello.
OPERA
3 – 5 July Teatro dei Differenti – 21.00
Catone – Pasticcio by G.F.Haendel
for the Haymarket Theatre London (1732) arias by Leo, Vinci, Hasse, Porpora and Vivaldi
Libretto by Pietro Metastasio
Conductor Carlo Ipata
Theatrical project I SACCHI DI SABBIA (Giulia Gallo, Giovanni Guerrieri, Giulia Solano)
Preparation vocalists – Roberta Invernizzi
Catone – Benedetta Mazzucato
Cesare – Paolo Marchini
Marzia – Myriam Arbouz
Arbace – Genevieve Tschumi
Emilia – Cristina Grifone.
Auser Musici Orchestra (18 elements).
Georg Friedrich Handel was one of the greatest composers of the baroque period and opera in Italian, the language of choice for nearly all his works, in the tradition of the time. In the Pasticcio – Catone in Utica, inspired by the opera of the same name by Leonardo Leo in 1729 Handel included his favourite arias by the greatest Italian composers of the past, including Vivaldi, Porpora, Hasse and Vinci, the most adapt for the talented singers available to him, such as Senesino, the famous castrato, who in London sang the role of Catone and Celeste Gismondi while Marzia was performed by the soprano Anna Strada, who ends the opera with the then famous aria by Leonardo Vinci “Vo solcando un mar crudele”.
The preparation of the vocalists, selected by auction, as in the past, is by Roberta Invernizzi, soprano and specialist teacher in baroque singing.
Carlo Ipata and his ensemble Auser Musici have already taken part in 3 editions of the festival and are specialised in baroque music, and performed in Germany, France, Belgium and Italy.
The announcement of the auditions will be published on the Opera Barga and Auser Musici websites.
CONCERTS
28 June – Cloister of S. Elisabetta, Barga
Ensemble de Trianon
Handel and his contemporaries
Chamber music by Handel, Telemann, J.S.Bach, Quantz, C.Ph.E Bach
Quartet Flute, violin, violoncello, harpsichord
29 June – Cloister of S. Elisabetta, Barga
Special concert Masterclass contestants by Roberta Invernizzi
Baroque Arias – Handel, Gasparini, Vivaldi, Porpora.
5 of the 69 singers who auditioned have been selected for the performance of a concert of baroque arias at the Festival.
The chosen are:
Mark Ellis Gough – baritone
Matilde Lazzaroni – mezzo soprano
Claudia Di Carlo – soprano
Lucia Cortese – soprano
Gyunghee Shin – soprano.
30 June – Ensemble de Trianon
L’invasione italiana (The Italian invasion)
Chamber music by Carbonelli, Geminiani, Scarlatti, Corelli, Platti, Telemann, Locatelli, Barriere.
2 July – Roberta Invernizzi (soprano) and Auser Musici conducted by Carlo Ipata
Arias by Gasparini and Handel
MUSICA NEI BORGHI PROJECT
Chamber music
10 – 12 July in Barga, 15 – 19 July in Bagnone (MS)
This year, the usual chamber music concerts in Barga and Bagnone. Some of the most picturesque little towns of the Tuscan Apennine come to life each year with the partnership of the ENSEMBLE LE MUSICHE OF SIMONE BERNARDINI (lead violin of the Berliner Philharmoniker) who will perform chamber music concerts by composers from the 18th to 20th century.
This years, besides chamber music by Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Mozart and Brahms, there is a special homage to Jean Sibelius for the 150th anniversary of his birth, with a performance of his 4 quartets and 2 trios.
The musicians (members of the principal European orchestras) will rehearse for the concerts on site (open to the public) with new programmes for each concert. The MUSICA NEI BORGHI project was co-produced with Barga and Bagnone and Barga Town Council (MS)..
by car: From Lucca SS12 towards Abetone, then ss 445 road towards Castelnuovo Garfagnana, until Fornaci di Barga, there take the road to Barga.
busses from Lucca
tel/fax 0583 711068
operabarga@gmail.com
Sede Amministrativa
Via della Fornacetta, 11
55051 Barga (Lu)
Sede Operativa
Piazza Angelio,8
55051 Barga (Lu)
The realisation of the 48th edition of the festival was possible thanks to the contribution by the Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca Foundation and Giglio Theatre with the participation of the Pisa Foundation for the preparation of Bajazet.
Associazione Culturale Teatro e Musica Opera Barga
The festival came about in 1967 thanks to the initiative of the actor Peter Hunt and scenographer Gillian Armitage, both English, who moved to Barga sometime before. The married couple thought of using the structure of the “Teatro dei Differenti” in Barga to found an operatic school which would offer young singers, orchestra players, orchestra directors and scenographers the possibility of working on a show that would then be performed.
Over its thirty years of activity, the festival has undergone changes in management, institutional partners and even address due to the long closure of the theatre for restoration work, however, always maintaining its primary aims. The Barga Opera has recently started collaborating with the “Ensemble Modo Antico” to work on a three year project about Antonio Vivaldi.
As a testimony to the peculiarity and vitality of this artistic project of Barga Opera, between philology and experimentation , we only have to remember that in the 1991 programme, “Histoire de Babar” by Poulenc appeared together with “Il Paratajo”, an intermezzo by Niccolò Iomelli, never shown in Italy and found in the Biblioteque Nationale de Paris. In this same way, “Arsilda, Regina di Ponto”, Vivaldi’s third operatic composition which has never been performed in modern times, along with “Ritratto
Di Luciano Berio” were shown in 2001, and in 2002 Vivaldi’s “Orlando Furioso” and “Play it again, Nino”, a tribute to Nino Rota.