With three weekends of performances and more than thirty initiatives for all audiences, the 2025 edition of the festival dedicated to the great Bergamo composer once again confirms itself as an unmissable event for international audiences and for the city of Bergamo

 

The 2025 edition of the Donizetti Opera festival-organized in Bergamo by the Donizetti Theater Foundation chaired by Giorgio Berta, with the general direction of Massimo Boffelli and the support of the City of Bergamo-has just concluded, with Riccardo Frizza serving for the first time in the dual role of artistic and musical director. From mid-October to Nov. 30, the international festival dedicated to the famous Bergamo composer was at the center of the city’s cultural life and a major tourist attraction, as well as in the spotlight of national and international music critics with 94 publications present, including 42 foreign ones.
Fundamental to the realization of Donizetti Opera, in addition to institutional partners such as the Ministry of Culture, the Region of Lombardy and the Bergamo Chamber of Commerce, has been the support of private individuals, starting with Allianz, Main Partner of the Donizetti Theater Foundation, Intesa Sanpaolo, SIAD and the growing number of companies and entities adhering to the Donizetti Ambassadors project that support the festival and the Foundation’s activities through Art Bonus.
The 2025 edition confirms the consolidation of the event, with total attendance at the shows exceeding 12,200. This also translates in terms of takings, which exceed 20 percent over 2023, the year of Bergamo-Brescia Capital of Culture, broadly comparable in type of proposals to this year’s festival. Added to these figures is the participation of the public in the rich off schedule, which with more than 30 activities, many of them free, including meetings, concerts, presentations, convivial moments, guided tours and open rehearsals, involved about 1,800 people.
And particularly high is the attention paid to the younger generation: the Donizetti Education section alone during the festival period saw the involvement of more than 6,000 children and young people from schools in the Bergamo area with teachers and families, including theater and classroom activities, plus another 3,000 attendees over the calendar year.
“This edition of Donizetti Opera has represented a significant step for me, having taken over the artistic direction, as well as the musical one, at the beginning of the year,” declares Maestro Riccardo Frizza, at the head of the event. “Although the programming was not entirely concerted by me, I wanted to make the most of every title and every artist involved, following the guidelines declared from the beginning of my mandate. I am, therefore, happy with the outcome of the Festival and with the vocal and musical level proposed, thanks to very talented performers, to the young conductors on the podium and to the artistic groups, the Donizetti Opera Orchestra, Gli Originali and the Accademia Teatro alla Scala Chorus, which guaranteed high professionalism. The response of the public and national and international critics also confirms the artistic maturity of the event and the growing interest in a repertoire that still gives many unexpected discoveries. We are already working on the next editions, and I am particularly pleased to have been able to announce the titles of Donizetti Opera 2026 at the opening of this festival, bringing us closer to international realities and also facilitating the participation of foreign audiences, year after year more and more attentive and participating. So I thank the artists, the workers, the collaborators and the whole Donizetti Theater Foundation for making the 2025 festival possible.”
“This edition of Donizetti Opera 2025 marks the symbolic beginning of a new decade of growth for our festival,” stresses President Giorgio Berta . “The results confirm the solidity of the path undertaken, revealing the constant commitment to promote and spread Donizetti’s legacy and generate new cultural value for the city. Indeed, the festival plays an important role in the local economic and tourism sector, not to mention the centrality that the project is assuming on the international scene, also to the benefit of Bergamo’s image abroad. First of all, I address heartfelt thanks to the artistic and musical director Riccardo Frizza, all the artistic, technical and administrative staff, collaborators and suppliers of the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti, who with professionalism, dedication and passion have supported every stage of the work, enabling the achievement of these positive results. In addition, unfailing, thanks to the audience, which has become increasingly loyal and devoted, as the data show us; and, last but not least, a big thank you to our sponsors and public and private partners, whose contribution is indispensable to make a cultural project of this magnitude possible and to bring the name of Bergamo and its illustrious fellow citizen to the world.”
In terms of audience origin,87 percent of the organized groups arrive from abroad-particularly from France and Germany-contributing to the city’s significant induced income, starting with bookings for Bergamo accommodations on show weekends. Analyzing individual tickets (out of a sample of 1,123 buyers), the foreign audience is confirmed to be 24 percent of the attendance, coming from 33 countries: Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Great Britain, France, the United States, Finland, Japan, Austria, Romania, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, the Netherlands, Ireland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Israel, Norway, Hungary, Australia, Slovenia, Malta, Denmark, Portugal, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Mexico, Canada, Croatia, Latvia, Russia, and Turkey.
In addition, Donizetti Opera 2025 found great interest from the press, both national and international: among the many print, online, radio and TV, news agency, specialized and generalist newspapers that reported on the festival, 94 were accredited of which 42 were foreign, from Japan, Mexico, Germany, Great Britain, France, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Poland, Canada, and Sweden.
On the digital side (official website and social media profiles), important numbers were obtained: considering only the months of October and November, the new bilingual donizettiopera.org website recorded over 32,000 visits, and the Facebook and Instagram profiles touch 33,000 followers with, again during the festival period, over 23,000 interactions with published content.
Looking back at the programming, the four operatic titles of Donizetti Opera 2025, offered in critical editions in collaboration with Casa Ricordi of Milan, were spread over three consecutive weekends, Friday through Sunday from November 14 to 30, presented in three new stagings: at the Donizetti Theater, the following returned after 30 years and with the new critical edition Caterina Cornaro, for the first time staged with the entire poetic text set to music by Donizetti and the finale proposed according to the composer’s wishes. Also staged at the Donizetti Theater was. Il furioso nell’isola di S. Domingo in the full version of the 1833 score, and at the Teatro Sociale, in the Upper Town, the diptych formed by the one-acts The Bell, in the 1837 version, and Deux hommes et une femme in the original French version.
The production of the diptych, in particular, featured the students of the Bottega Donizetti, young professionals who have tackled in recent months an intense work dedicated to Donizetti’s repertoire, in order to deepen the vocal and dramaturgical themes connected to his operatic production. The project, curated by Giulio Zappa, was supported by the Rotary Club Bergamo Terra di San Marco and by Carlo and Claudio Curnis, who, at the end of the second performance at the Teatro Sociale, presented onstage certificates of participation to the artists amid applause from the audience.
The focus on the younger generation and the audiences of tomorrow is also evident in the dedicated proposals, starting with the Under 30 Previews in the opening week of the festival, and completing with open rehearsals, workshops in schools, PCTO and the dedicated Orchestra Vibes concert. In addition, this year’s “educational” title was the participatory opera The furious Gaetano on the island of St. Domingo. Or rather the astonishing memoirs of a visionary musician. , which on the date open to families saw the Donizetti Opera Ensemble in the pit playing the instruments of the Orchestra del Mare, made in the lutherie of the Milan-Opera Prison with wood from migrants’ boats, in collaboration with the Fondazione Casa dello Spirito e delle Arti.
Donizetti Opera 2025 has, moreover, distinguished itself through the rich schedule of Donizetti Off, programming that has embraced diverse audiences through dedicated reviews since last May, when it opened with the appointments of the CineDOpera cycle, a cineforum that has accompanied spectators throughout the spring and summer by offering shared viewing of some of the festival’s most iconic titles, introduced by musicologists from the Centro Studi Donizettiani. This is joined by a performance on June 21, Music Day, Donizetti Opera feat. HardCoro , which made the packed theater sing in a large pop-up chorus between light music and Donizettian echoes, and then found itself again as autumn approached with the opening of the widespread exhibition Caterina Cornaro experience. A queen to remember, which has involved since October 15 the main cultural institutions of Bergamo – Accademia Carrara, Biblioteca Musicale Gaetano Donizetti, Mura di Bergamo: the Donizettiano Museum and Museum of Bergamo’s Museum of Histories – as well as the Fondazione Arte della Seta Lisio of Florence. Hence, again: open rehearsals of performances with Opera Unplugged, initiatives for World Opera Day, the cycle of book presentations and meetings Opera Stories, initiatives for children and families of Opera Family, thanks also to the support of Stucchi. Not to be missed is the Dies Natalis event, the composer’s birthday on Saturday, Nov. 29, with musical elevation in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore by the Bergamo Polytechnic of the Arts and guided tours of Gaetano Donizetti’s Birthplace, exceptionally open for the occasion.
The new event The Donizetti Brunch was a great success, with Sunday morning concerts-which also featured unreleased and first performances in modern times of Donizetti romances, in collaboration with the British label Opera Rara-in the Ridotto Gavazzeni, followed by an exclusive brunch in the scenic Sala Allianz of the Donizetti Theater.
Finally, the evening aimed at the business world, Leadership Armonica, held under the patronage of Confindustria Bergamo and with the collaboration of Federmanager Bergamo, dedicated to the relationship between music, theater and leadership, involved the fabric of Bergamo companies with more than 650 representatives from over 180 companies in the area present at the experiential concert, to reflect together with Gloria Campaner, Alberto Zanardi and Daniel Lumera on a new concept of being a leader in comparison with the work that the conductor does with the orchestra. The project will continue, then, in 2026 with a workshop program of the same name on the topic-both at the Donizetti Theater and at companies that wish to join-organized in collaboration between Servizi Confindustria Bergamo and the Donizetti Opera festival. The first date is for Tuesday, Feb. 10, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the “M. Tremaglia” Music Room of the Donizetti Theater, during which a course designed to enhance individual talents and foster a synergistic, cohesive and high-performance work environment will be addressed (for information: Servizi Confindustria Bergamo).
The 2025 edition has, therefore, come to a close, already looking ahead to next year: since the beginning of the festival, weekend carnets and Saturday carnets-purchasable at the Teatro Donizetti box office and bookable online at donizettiopera.org-of Donizetti Opera 2026, featuring the three Donizetti titles L’esule di Roma (Teatro Donizetti Nov. 13, 21 and 29, 2026), are on sale, Alahor in Granata (Teatro Sociale Nov. 14, 22 and 27, 2026) and The theatrical conveniences and inconveniences. (Donizetti Theater November 15, 20 and 28, 2026).