Founded in Catania in 2009 by Enrico Castiglione together with the then Province of Catania (today Metropolitan City of Catania), in collaboration with the Municipality of Catania, the Sicilian Region, the EAR Teatro Massimo Bellini, the University of Catania, the Chamber of Commerce and the Archbishopric, the Bellini Festival reaches its fourteenth edition this year consecutive and returns to Catania with a new program of concerts, operas, events, exhibitions and meetings through its historic sections “Bellini Opera Festival”, “Bellini Renaissance”, “Bellini International”, “Bellini Melody Festival”.
The prestigious event, now more than ten years old, whose artistic direction is signed by Enrico Castiglione, director and set designer of international fame, already acclaimed artistic director of Taormina Arte for a decade, will therefore start the next September 23, 2022on the exact day of the 187th anniversary of Vincenzo Bellini’s death, when the princely halls of Palazzo Biscari, where little Vincenzo took his first musical steps, will welcome the Inaugural concert entitled “Dolente immagine”. The Concert, which officially inaugurates the 14th edition and which will also be broadcast in live streaming and which can therefore be seen in every part of the world, will feature two stars of the first magnitude of the international opera scene: the baritone Roberto Abbondanza and the soprano Angela Nisi .
The concert will offer a rich and intense program of operatic arias and more: it will open with the aria “Dolente immagine” by Vincenzo Bellini, which gives the concert its title, and then continue with two of his chamber arias as “Vaga luna” and “For pity bell’idol mio” and get to the opera with Il pirata, of which we will listen to “Oh! If I could dispel the clouds … With the smile of innocence “and” Oh, Sun! Ti vela ”(scene and final aria from Imogene). But it will not be Vincenzo Bellini’s music alone that will be the protagonist of the inaugural concert: in fact, the aria by Guglielmo “Resta immobile” by Guglielmo Tell will be performed by Gioacchino Rossini, as well as the rarely heard song “The promise”. Gaetano Donizetti will not be missing, with “Amor, voce del cielo” for two voices and the official part of the program will be concluded by Bellini’s melodrama: from Norma with “Casta diva… Ah! Bello returns to me ”and above all from Beatrice di Tenda with the air of Filippo“ Oh! Divina Agnese!… How I adore you ”and Filippo’s scene and aria“ Remorse in her?… Here she welcomed me oppressed, wandering ”, as well as the recitative and duet by Beatrice and Filippo“ Tu qui, Filippo ”. An inaugural program of great rigor, without cuts and reductions, which will see Eugenia Tamburri accompany Roberto Abbondanza and Angela Nisi on the piano for over an hour and a half of great Bellinian repertoire and beyond.
All tickets for the 14th edition of the Bellini Festival, promoted by the Bellini Festival Foundation together with the television portal musicalia.tvare on sale in the usual pre-sales throughout the national territory through the circuits vivaticket.it, ticketone.it, diyticket.it and above all in all Sisal and Mooney Pay points of sale, newsstands and tobacconists, as well as online on their respective websites and on official sitewhere you can also find the complete program.