Sinopoli / Perosi, R. Frizza
Featuring the La Fenice Orchestra and Choir, the esteemed Italian conductor Riccardo Frizza leads works by Giuseppe Sinopoli and Lorenzo Perosi in Venice. The programme has been put together to mark the 80th anniversary of Sinopoli’s birth and serves as the opening concert of the Venetian venue's anticipated symphonic season. Frizza has taken charge of the orchestra at La Fenice many times over the years and this return sees him conducting a programme made up entirely of Italian pieces.
The concert begins with a rendition of an excerpt from Sinopoli's orchestral work, Pour un livre à Venise. Prima raccolta: Costanzo Porta. It was first performed on 20 June 1975 at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam, under the baton of Sinopoli. The version Frizza will conduct features the second movement, Hommage à Costanzo Porta. A noted composer of serial music, a style originally pioneered by Arnold Schoenberg, Sinopoli was born in Venice, later becoming a professor of contemporary and electronic music at the city's Conservatoire Benedetto Marcello in 1972. He was a leading figure for contemporary music in the city and was a proponent of the so-called New Venice School which helped to popularise it.
The programme continues with Il giudizio universale, an oratorio for soloists, choir and orchestra by Lorenzo Perosi, a celebrated composer of sacred music. Born in Piedmont, Perosi was well-known in Venetian circles during his lifetime, although unlike Sinopoli, he wasn't a native. In fact, Perosi served as the Maestro of the Cappella Marciana at the city's St Mark's Basilica. Although oratorios had been a popular musical form chosen by Italian composers such as Vivaldi and Scarlatti, they had fallen out of fashion to a degree by the 20th century. Perosi is often cited as reinventing it, notably with Il giudizio universale, a piece in which he was able to successfully blend the classical oratorio with the more contemporary symphonic poem style. The work was first performed on 8 April 1904 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Based on texts written by the Italian writers Pietro Metastasio and Giuliano Salvadori, the work was composed in the Vatican while Perosi was the guest of Pope Pius X.
Riccardo Frizza serves as the Musical Director and Artistic Director of the Bergamo Donizetti Opera Festival. The celebrated maestro is also the Honorary Conductor of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir. With two such distinct musical styles on the programme under the direction of such a highly respected conductor, this concert offers a compelling celebration of Italy's rich musical heritage and promises a memorable opening to La Fenice's new symphonic season.