Fondazione Arena celebrates its 50th anniversary at the Teatro Filarmonico

The 2025 programme provides a refined and varied offer, both with the 6 operas and the 12 symphonic concerts with internationally renowned soloists. There are three new productions, numerous anniversaries, special events and collaborations with the main theatres of Veneto, for over 50 performances. Season passes can be renewed from 1 October, with the 2024 prices confirmed.

The Opera Season will kick off in January (from 19 to 26), with an all-new staging of Antonio Salieri's Falstaff, the opera that reopened the theatre fifty years ago. The new production, included in the Mozart in Verona Festival, will be directed by Paolo Valerio. From 16 to 23 February, a wonderful work from the "Young School" arrives for the first time in the last half century of performances at the Teatro Filarmonico: La Wally by the little-remembered but valiant Alfredo Catalani, in the staging of Emilian opera houses and with prestigious performers such as Maria José Siri, Carlo Ventre, and Youngjun Park. From 16 to 23 March, a milestone work of literature and music from the early 1900s will return: Elektra by Richard Strauss. This new production, twenty-three years after its only appearance on the billboards of the Fondazione Arena, is directed by Yamal Das Irmich with Lise Lindstrom, Ewa Vesin and Anna Maria Chiuri. After the symphonic spring and the 102nd Arena Festival, the rediscovery of the lesser-known works by Giacomo Puccini will continue from 26 October to 2 November: Le Villi will also make its first appearance for the Fondazione Arena, here in the production as staged by the Regio di Torino. From 16 to 23 November, in another debut, the public will discover a funny masterpiece by Rossini, Il Turco in Italia, in the acclaimed co-production led by Rovigo with Carlo Lepore and Sara Blanch. Finally, from 14 to 21 December, comes a work from Verdi’s younger years (also staged once only at the Teatro Filarmonico, and once only at the Arena in 1972) with Ernani, in a new production by Stefano Poda with Amartuvshin Enkhbat, Angelo Villari and Alexander Vinogradov. Vocal casts and creative teams will engage the best of young talent and the current landscape, offering prestigious debuts at the Philharmonic. Among the conductors, the maestros Pirolli, Balke, Ommassini, Cadario, Lü Jia, and Arrivabeni are set to return.

The Symphonic Season confirms a notable 10 season pass events, plus two special concerts. The programme will cover over three centuries of music, opening on 31 January with Mozart's Great Mass in C minor and going on to mark important anniversaries of great composers such as Šostakovič, Ravel and Antonio Salieri himself, to whom the extraordinary Easter concert on the 200th anniversary of his death will be dedicated (and also exceptionally replicated in Legnago, the maestro's hometown). The integral works undertaken in recent years by the Fondazione Arena will also continue: the concertos of Rachmaninov (his legendary Third), the compositions of Richard Strauss, the symphonies of Beethoven (the Pastoral) and those of Mahler (Symphony no.7, complex and fascinating, never before performed by the Verona ensembles). Well-known pieces and classics of the repertoire (such as the pages of Bartók and Chopin, Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto or the colossal cantata Alexander Nevsky) will be flanked by rarer and equally precious works, presenting composers from Hungary and Latin America. Finally, there will be some modern proposals, included in broad and stimulating thematic programmes: Poulenc, Berio, Dennehy, and a new world premiere of a work from maestro Sciortino, the contemporary multifaceted artist. As in 2024, the concert calendar will intensify in the spring, involving more Orchestra and Chorus productions, while the technical ensembles will stage the new production of the 102nd Festival in the Arena, and then resume in the autumn before closing with a special gala event at the end of the year. Alongside talented young people, there will be internationally renowned soloists and conductors, such as Dmitri Jurowsky, Ettore Pagano, Ryan McAdams, Mikhail Pletnev, Marco Angius, Marcus Bosch, and Augustin Hadelich, to name just a few in order of appearance on the Verona stage.