Estate all’Italiana Festival

The Valle d’Itria Festival | Il borghese gentiluomo (“The Bourgeois Gentleman”).

Based on Moliere’s comedy of the same title, with music by Strauss. Bourgeois Monsieur Jourdain dreams of becoming a nobleman in a world full of small-minded individuals lacking true qualities. From the Ducal Palace, Martina Franca.

Based on the comedy of the same title by Molière

Music by Richard Strauss

Orchestra by Petruzzelli Theatre of Bari

Michele Spotti director

Davide Gasparro production

Fabrizio DI Franco staging

Stefano Massini as Monsieur Jourdain (narrator’s voice)

Vitttorio Prato as Monsieur Jourdain (musical voice)

In collaboration with National Dance Foundation / Aterballetto

‘Il borghese gentiluomo’ is the fruit of a collaboration between Richard Strauss and the poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal just like Arianna a Nasso, the other title presented at this revamped 46th version of the Valle d’Itria Festival. 

In 1912 the two shows debuted together at the Stuttgart Court Theatre, directed by Max Reinhardt and composed by Strauss. They were proposed as a single project based on two storylines: one from the comédie-ballet Le bourgeois gentilhomme (written by Molière and set to music by Jean-Baptiste Lully) and the mythological one of Ariadne, topics that were far apart in time but let the two authors engage in the same happy interplay that had led to the success of Der Rosenkavalier.

However, the public reaction to this new proposal was lukewarm. Separated and revised, however, the two works garnered new success: Der Bürger als Edelmann thus became an orchestral suite (Op. 60 of 1919).

Ravenna Festival | Duets and solos

A special evening animated by Les Étoiles of the dance world to the notes of great composers, performed by Beatrice Rano and Mario Brunello. From Rocca Brancaleone, Ravenna

Curated by Daniele Cipriani

Mario Brunello cello

Beatrice Rana pianoforte
Dancers
Silvia Azzoni (Hamburg Ballet)
Sergio Bernal (formerly National Ballet of Spain)
Hugo Marchand (Opéra de Paris)
Matteo Miccini (Stuttgart Ballet)
Alexandre Ryabko (Hamburg Ballet)
Iana Salenko (Berlin Opera)
Marian Walter (Berlin Opera)

musical consulting Gastón Fournier-Facio

Music pieces adapted from the Arcangelo Corelli, J.S. Bach, Frédéric Chopin, Camille Saint-Saëns, Jules Massenet, Pablo de Sarasate, Claude Debussy, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel

Choreography Michel Fokine, Jerome Robbins, Antonio Ruiz Soler, Roland Petit, John Neumeier, Ricardo Cue, Uwe Scholz, Edward Clug, Kristina Borbelyova, Sergio Bernal

in collaboration with Carlo Felice Theatre Foundation, Genoa – Nervi Ballet Festival

Looking at the stars once again after the dark night of Covid. The Ravenna festival welcomes “étoiles” of dance and stars of music engaged in an intimate evening, respecting safety rules. This is made possible not only thanks to the intimate nature of solo performances but also the fortunate coincidence that many great ‘pas a deux’ performers are partners in life as in art and can embrace without any fear.

Silvia Azzoni and Alexander Ryabko arrive from John Neumeier’s prestigious Hamburg studio, engaging in a very romantic journey between night, moonlight and sonatas. From Berlin with love, a “familial” pas a deux by Iana Salenko and Marian Walter, while Serge Bernal and Matteo Miccini take turns on the stage, one with sizzling dances with a flamenco flavour, the other in a splintered extract from Ssss by Edward Clug, concluding together, but at a distance and without ever touching, with a Folia de Caballeros set to tune by Corelli. Hugo Marchand, instead, travels alone with the jazzy and plush rhythms that Jerome Robbins created for Baryshnikov in Suite of Dances.

Musical solos by two other prominent artists. On the one hand the seasoned maturity of Mario Brunello wrestles with the small cello, a historical instrument that the master plays alternating with his traditional instrument, a seventeenth-century Maggi. And on the other hand, the overpowering and ascendant talent of the young pianist Beatrice Rana.

Valle d’Itria Festival | Arianna a Nasso by Richard Strauss

The mythological figure of Arianna or Ariadne is the connecting thread of this edition of the Valle d’Itria festival, set in the baroque world and retrieved from classical culture. From the Ducal Palace – Martina Franca.

Orchestra by Petruzzelli Theatre, Bari

Fabio Luisi director
Walter Pagliaro direction
Gianni Carluccio stage elements
Giuseppe Palella costumes

Carmela Remigio as Arianna
Piero Pretti as Bacco 

Jessica Pratt as Zerbinetta 

Vittorio Prato as Arlecchino

Manuel Amati as Brighella

Eugenio Di Lieto as Truffaldino

Vassily Solodkyy as Scaramuccia
Mariam Battistelli as Eco 

Ana Victoria Pitts as Driade

Barbara Massaro as Naiade

Arianna a Nasso – like the other title, Il borghese gentiluomo – was born out of a collaboration between Richard Strauss and the poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal. They were proposed as a single project based on the storylines of Moliere’s Le bourgeois gentilhomme and the mythological one of Ariadne. They debuted in 1912 at the Stuttgart Theatre, directed by (and under the banner of the theatre company of) Max Reinhardt and with the same composer. The public’s reaction was lukewarm and the two works were separated and revised, thus becoming major successes on their own, and a prologue was added to Ariadne auf Naxos.

The entire 46^th Valle d’Itria Festival will revolve around the theme of Ariadne, set in the baroque world and retrieved from classical culture.