Rossini to open BOV Opera Festival

The ninth edition of the BOV Opera Festival was launched yesterday promising to live up to the "strong reputation" it has built in the Maltese cultural calendar.

This year's festival opens with Gioachino Rossini's opera Cenerentola on March 5 and 7. This is the first time that this production is being staged here and will be performed, at the Manoel Theatre, by Teatro Borgatti di Cento with the participation of the National Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Michael Laus.

Cenerentola is based on Charles Perrault's fairytale Cinderella and was composed by Italian composer Rossini (1792-1868) when he was 25.

On March 9, I Fagiolini, a British ensemble best known for Renaissance and contemporary music, will be taking the audience on a passionate journey through a rich variety of Italian composer and singer Claudio Monteverdi's (1567-1643) opera arias. This event is organised in collaboration with the British Council and will be held at the Museum of Archaeology in Valletta.

Next, two one-act operas by Italian composers will bring the 2008 edition of the opera festival to a grand finale with collaboration between the Manoel Theatre and Italy's Operalaboratorio. These will be performed and the Manoel Theatre on March 10 and 12.

Giacomo Puccini's (1858-1924) one-act opera Gianni Schicchi, based on a story referred to in Dante's The Divine Comedy, will mark the 150th anniversary of Puccini's birth.

The second one-act opera brings the audience closer to contemporary times with Nino Rota's (1911-1979) Notte di un Nevrastenico. Rota is best known for his work on film scores, notably The Godfather series and the films of Federico Fellini.

Speaking during the launch of the festival's programme, Manoel Theatre chairman Peter Fenech said that the long-term collaboration between the theatre and Bank of Valletta had delivered high quality productions over the past nine years.

"It is envisaged that this year's performances will consolidate the strong reputation that the BOV Opera Festival has built in the Maltese cultural calendar," he said.

Bank chief executive officer Tonio Depasquale said he was pleased to see that the opera festival was considered to be a major cultural highlight and had a strong local and international following.

He described the festival as a prime example of the manner in which the bank took an active role in the community and in the promotion of arts and culture on the local scene. This is the ninth year that the bank has supported the Manoel Theatre to make the festival possible. As in the past two years the opera festival is also being supported by Valletta Fund Management Ltd and Middlesea Valletta Life Assurance Co Ltd.