Top 10 Opera and Music Festivals in Italy

In July and August the Sferisterio Opera Festival is held in the 2,500 seat Arena Sferisterio, the largest outdoor arena after Verona. Originally built for handball games, the huge neoclassical arena erected in the 1820s became the venue of summer opera performances in 1921. The first opera performed was Giuseppe Verdi's Aida. The arena was transformed into a real outdoor theatre with an enormous parabolic stage. The orchestra was placed immediately behind it and the seats were located around it. The orchestra pit is so wide that musicians at each end cannot hear each other. Because of its perfect acoustics, the venue housed the most important international voices of bel canto. The ballets of Fracci and Nureyev were also performed here.

6. Pesaro Rossini Opera Festival

The Rossini Opera Festival (also known as the Pesaro Festival) is an opera festival held in August of each year in Pesaro, Marche, the birthplace of the opera composer Gioachino Rossini.

Performances are held in the 850-seat Teatro Rossini, built in 1818, the modified "Palasport" sports arena which holds 1,500 and, since 2000, also in the Teatro Sperimentale (Experimental Theatre), for smaller-scale or minor works by contemporaries of Rossini such as Mosca, Generali, and Coccia.

Highlighted in the event are the lesser known works of the great composer. Of the approximately three dozen operas written, only a handful are regularly presented. Thanks to the Pesaro Festival many of Rossini's lesser-known works have been revived, some of which have since entered the standard operatic repertoire.

7. Stresa Festival, Lake Maggiore

Started in 1961, the Stresa Festival, officially referred to as "Settimane Musicali di Stresa e del Lago Maggiore" is one of Europe's important classical music international festivals, held annually in the summer.

Settings for the Festival include the Hermitage of Santa Caterina del Sasso in Leggiuno, in the province of Varese, the Auditorium "La Fabbrica" in Villadossola, the Castello Visconteo in Vogogna, the Rocca Borromea in Angera, Villa Ponti in Arona, Villa San Remigio and the Madonna di Campagna Church in Verbania, the Chiesa Vecchia of Belgirate and the Basilica di San Giulio in Orta.

8. Teatro dell'Opera di Roma Summer Festival, Baths of Caracalla, Rome

The romantic city of Verona offers one of the biggest events in the Opera scene. The Verona opera festival is staged in the Arena di Verona, one of the most impressive and best preserved Roman amphitheaters - the world's third largest to survive to this day. It is famous for its large-scale opera performances mounted each year between June and August or September. Built in AD 30, it could host more than 30,000 spectators in ancient times (today the number is restricted to 15,000 for safety reasons). Schedule is well laid out to suit any Italy package tour itinerary.

2. Festival Dei Due Mondi, Spoleto

The "Festival of the Two Worlds" is an annual summer music and opera festival held each June to early July. Since its founding by composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958 the festival has developed into one of the most important cultural manifestations in Italy. It features a vast array of concerts, dramatic operas, dance, impressive visual arts and roundtable discussions on science. The event represents a very important manifestation where the two worlds of American and European culture face each other. The venue of arts festival is a simple, small town which offers good and reasonable deals. Spoletto is not so distant from Rome with a good train rail for a convenient Italy package trip.

3. Festival Puccini, Torre del Lago

The Festival Puccini (Puccini Festival) is an annual summer opera festival held in July and August held in Torre del Lago, Tuscany, where the exceptional composer lived for over thirty years and composed most of his operas. In presenting four or five performances of up to four operatic productions each season, the Festival attracts about forty thousand spectators to its open-air theatre, the Teatro dei Quattromila (so named for its seating capacity, although 3,200 seats were actually installed), on the shores of Lake Massaciuccoli.

Started in 1930 by Giovacchino Forzano and Pietro Mascagni, Puccini's friend and student respectively, the stage of Torre del Lago has hosted the most famous and acclaimed names of world opera in over seventy years of the Festival.

The venue is practically a stone-throw away from the small chapel where Puccini's remains, along with those of other members of his family, are buried, inside the "Villa Puccini," which the composer had built in 1900 and in which he lived and worked on his major operas until pollution from the lake forced him to settle in Viareggio in 1921.

4. Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Florence

Known to be the very first musical festival of the country, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentinois an annual arts festival in Florence founded with the aim of presenting contemporary and forgotten operas in visually dramatic productions. The first opera presented was Verdi's early Nabucco, his early operas then being rarely staged. Originally a biennial event, it now takes place annually between late April, May and into June, typically with four operas. Performances take place in the Teatro Comunale and Teatro Piccolo (as the name suggests, for smaller-scale operas), plus the historic Teatro della Pergola. A new opera house opened in 2011. Maggio Dance is the festival's own dance company.

5. Sferisterio Opera Festival, Macerata

The Baths of Caracalla, with the Roman ruins as the backdrop, is the venue for the opera company's summertime presentations in Rome.

9. Ravenna Festival, Ravenna

This festival offers an array of performances: opera, classical music, dance and jazz, ethnic and electronic music, drama, films plus conventions and exhibitions. Held every July and August in the city of Ravenna and the surrounding area, the Ravenna festival has become a significant date on the international musical calendar offering the world's finest orchestras led by some of the most important conductors.

One of the distinctive characteristics of the Festival is the incorporation of Ravenna's extraordinary and very rich architectural heritage. While the Teatro Comunale Alighieri is the main venue for opera performances, the splendid Byzantine basilicas (San Vitale, S. Apollinare in Classe, S. Apollinare Nuovo, S. Francesco), cloisters and piazzas also become the setting for performances, adding a special charm to the event by offering a magical link between art, architecture and music.

10. Umbria Jazz, Perugia

This is one of the most significant jazz festivals in the world. Held in July for its summer edition and in December/January for its winter edition, the event has become a prestigious gathering of big names in jazz.

The Best of Italian Opera
   1. La Traviata, opera Libiamo, libiamo
      Composed by Giuseppe Verdi
      Performed by Rome Opera House Orchestra
     2. Rigoletto, opera La donna è mobile
      Composed by Giuseppe Verdi
      Performed by Rome Opera House Orchestra
       3. Il barbière di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville), opera Una voce poco fà
      Composed by Gioachino Rossini
      Performed by London Philharmonia Orchestra
   4. La bohème, opera Che gelida manina
      Composed by Giacomo Puccini
      Performed by Rome Opera House Orchestra
5. Rigoletto, opera Gualtier maldé Caro nome
      Composed by Giuseppe Verdi
      Performed by Rome Opera House Orchestra
    6. Il Trovatore, opera Vedi! le fosche (Anvil Chorus)
      Composed by Giuseppe Verdi
      Performed by Royal Opera House Orchestra Covent Garden
     7. Il Trovatore, opera Il balen del suo sorriso...Per me ora fatale
      Composed by Giuseppe Verdi
      Performed by Rome Opera House Orchestra
8. Tosca, opera Vissi d'arte
      Composed by Giacomo Puccini
      Performed by Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
      9. Gagliarde Di Provenza il mar, il suol
      Composed by Adrian Denss
      Performed by Rome Opera House Orchestra
10. Le nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), opera, K. 492 Voi che sapete
      Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
      Performed by London Philharmonia Orchestra
      11. Aida, opera Se quel guerrier io fossi...Celeste Aida
      Composed by Giuseppe Verdi
      Performed by Royal Opera House Orchestra Covent Garden
      12. Madama Butterfly (Madame Butterfly), opera Un bel dí vedremo
      Composed by Giacomo Puccini
      Performed by Rome Opera House Orchestra
      13. La Gioconda, opera in 4 acts Cielo e mar
      Composed by Amilcare Ponchielli
      Performed by Royal Opera House Orchestra Covent Garden
      14. Lucia di Lammermoor, opera Ardon gl'incesi (Mad Scene)
      Composed by Gaetano Donizetti
      Performed by London Philharmonia Orchestra
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