Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Music has always had a fundamental role in the artistic life of Florence, where, at the end of the sixteenth century, the very first operas were performed, following the theory and practice of the Camerata dei Bardi. Today the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the centre of musical life in Florence, is based at Teatro Comunale, and produces the Maggio Musicale Festival - together with Bayreuth and Salzburg, the oldest, important European music festival - as well as its annual concert, opera and ballet seasons.

The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino was founded in 1933 by Vittorio Gui; it is the oldest Italian music festival and, on an international level, one of the most important.
If the festival takes up the months of May and June, the activity of the theatre goes on all year round, with its opera season, its concerts and ballets, and the summer concerts in the magnificent and suggestive framework of the Boboli Gardens: a constant and varied offer of musical occasions for an international, exacting and qualified audience.

70th Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, from the 24th of April to the 30th of June.
-The festival starts with "Antigone", great opera first performed in the world. Music by Ivan Fedele. 24-04-2007, h 20.30, 04-05-2007, h 20.30, 06-05-2007, h 15.30
- Then: "Orfeo ed Euridice", Opera in three acts by Ranieri de' Calzabigi, conductor Riccardo Muti, 28-04-2007, 29-04-2007, at 20.30

Other events:
- BÉJART BALLET LAUSANNE
La vie du danseur racontée par Zig et Puce Boléro
- Barenboim Project ZUBIN MEHTA DANIEL BARENBOIM
Bartòk - Concert for orchestra
Ludwig van Beethoven
Concert n. 4 for piano and orchestra op. 58
Franz Liszt
Concert n. 1 for piano and orchestra
18-05-2007, h 20.30
Conductor Zubin Metha
- Maggio OFF, Exhibitions of young artists. Several concerts.

The Teatro Comunale originated in the Florentine Politeama, which was designed in 1862 by Telemaco Bonaiuti, an open arena over which the present structure was built. It seats 2003 people and is made up of a large stalls section, and two wide semi-circular galleries giving the impression of an amphitheatre. Near the main auditorium is the Piccolo Teatro, a small, modern theatre seating approximately 600 spectators. Partially destroyed twice, in the bombing of 1944 and in the flood of 1966, the Comunale was quickly rebuilt, symbolising the determination of the citizens to re-emerge and demonstrating its loyalty to the city (also witnessed at the concert in Piazza della Signoria after the bomb attack at the Uffizi in 1993). At the Comunale all the great conductors - Vittorio Gui, Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Zubin Mehta, von Karajan and Muti - and singers, as the 'divine' Maria Callas - have alternated, while composers such as Pietro Mascagni and Richard Strauss, Paul Hindemith and Bela Bartòk, Igor Stravinsky and Luigi Dallapiccola, Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio have interpreted their own music.

othe info: www.maggiofiorentino.com