The newly founded Fondazione Teatro Donizetti was established in 2014 and is based in Bergamo.
It is a non-profit organisation whose surplus is not distributed to its members.
The Fondazione’s objectives are those of fostering culture and the arts and the promotion of community interest, especially among the young, in theatre and music through educational and cultural initiatives. The Fondazione seeks to sustain, encourage, and stimulate cultural growth, the activities promoted by the Donizetti Theatre, and the necessary structural adjustments to enhance the Theatre’s functionality.
In addition to that, the Fondazione aims to promote prose, dance, music, literature, culture, and arts through a comprehensive programme which integrates production, distribution, updating, training, and hospitality. Moreover, the Fondazione aims to foster relationships with national and international bodies in order to actively promote the cultural heritage of Bergamo and of its Theatre.
Besides managing and administering the movable and immovable property of the Donizetti Theatre, the Fondazione plans and organises the opera seasons, at times in collaboration with other theatres or institutions, and it may also deal with further promotional and complementary activities.
The members of the Fondazione are divided into: promoting founders, participating members, and partners.

ORGANOGRAM

President:

Dott. Giorgio Berta

Board of Directions:

President Dott. Giorgio Berta
Vice President Dott. Alfredo Gusmini
Advisor Sig. Emilio Bellingardi
Advisor Dott. Simona Bonaldi
Advisor Dott. Enrico Fusi
Advisor Dott. Giovanni Thiella
Advisor Dott. Alessandro Valoti

Statuary auditor:

Dott. Marco Rescigno

Board of Patrons:

President Dott.ssa Eleonora Doneda
Vice President Dott.ssa Anna Villari
A2A | ALLIANZ | ATB | FLOW METER | INTESA SANPAOLO | IRE OMBA | KPMG | NUOVA DEMI | OMB | RULMECA | SACBO | TRUSSARDI PETROLI | UNIACQUE

Director

Massimo Boffelli

Artistic Directors

Born in 1972 in Bergamo, he graduated in Modern Literature at the Scuola d’Arte Drammatica Paolo Grassi, in Milan. His professional career developed in two directions over the years: on the one hand, his work as artistic director of internationally significant festivals and his central role in developing innovative projects in the opera field; on the other hand, his work as director in Italy and abroad, as well as his teaching career.
From 2012 to 2017 he was the artistic director of Macerata Opera Festival, the glorious festival which has been taking place in the charming setting of the Sferisterio since 1921. He took just four years to revamp the festival and bring it back to the fore as an internationally reknown event acclaimed by critics and audiences. He created an original festival which promoted research and excellence, celebrating opera as a priceless common good.
Since December 2014 he is the artistic director of Fondazione Donizetti, where he has been bringing about a complete perspectival revolution in the role and works of Donizetti by importing into the city of Bergamo the values and ideas of his artistic project. He founded two main festivals: the Donizetti Night in June and the Donizetti Opera Festival in autumn, which hosts the rarest works of the composer from Bergamo.
Micheli also expresses his artistic creativity through a series of projects, in collaboration with various theatres, aimed at bringing the public closer to the opera world. His commitment to disseminating knowledge about opera made him a prominent cultural figure in Italy as author and presenter of TV shows dedicated to opera on Sky Classica and Sky Arte, as well as a weekly TV programme on Rai 1 (Italy’s national public service station).
As far as his work as director is concerned, after his debut with As.Li.Co. (Italian Association of Opera Concerts), he directed several operas in numerous national and international theatres becoming a major part of his repertoire: from the Fenice Theatre in Venice to the Verona Arena ; from the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino to the Massimo Theatre in Palermo; from the Comunale in Bologna to the NCPA in Beijing.
Riccardo Frizza (Brescia 1971), who studied at the Milan Conservatory and the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, is considered one of the leading conductors of his generation, particularly dedicated to the Italian opera repertoire of the 19th century.
He is a regular guest at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Fenice in Venice, the Opera in Rome, the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, the Festival Verdi in Parma, and the Macerata Opera Festival. Abroad he has conducted, among others, at the Opéra National de Paris, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, the Metropolitan Opera of New York, and the Bayerische Staatsoper (Bavarian State Opera) in Munich.
In the symphony field he has been on the podium of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (National Academy of Santa Cecilia), the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Sächsische Staatskapelle (Saxony State Orchestra) in Dresden, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano “Giuseppe Verdi” (Symphony Orchestra of Milan), the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. His engagements in recent years include Norma at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Rigoletto at the Liceu in Barcelona, Lucia di Lammermoor at the Teatro la Fenice and I Puritani in Budapest, Falstaff at the Festival Verdi in Parma, Il pirata at the Teatro alla Scala, Anna Bolena in Rome, Falstaff in Dallas. He was invited to give a Lectio Magistralis at Chicago University as well as at the Italian Cultural Institute.
Since 2017 he has been music director of the Donizetti Opera Festival in Bergamo, where he conducted Il castello di Kenilworth in 2018 and Lucrezia Borgia in 2019 for the first performance of the new critical edition of the score published by Ricordi and Fondazione Teatro Donizetti (Donizetti Theatre Foundation). His Donizetti repertoire includes Lucia di Lammermoor, L’elisir d’amore, Linda di Chamounix, Maria Stuarda (at the MET with Sondra Radvanovsky), La fille du régiment, Lucrezia Borgia (at the San Francisco Opera with Renée Fleming), Roberto Devereux (again in San Francisco), Anna Bolena (at the Rome Opera).
Professor Emeritus of the University of Ferrara, he is president of the National Edition of Donizetti’s Operas. From 1992 to 2000 he represented Italy on the board of the International Musicological Society. He is the musical director of the Institute of Renaissance Studies in Ferrara and a member of the scientific committee of the «Saggiatore musicale». He directs the series “ConNotazioni” (Lucca, LIM) and the periodical «Musicalia» (Pisa, Fabrizio Serra). He is a member of the scientific committees of the Edizioni Nazionali (National Editons) of the works of Andrea Gabrieli and Vincenzo Bellini. He is a consultant of the Deutsche Rossini Gesellschaft (German Rossini Society).
In 1989, he received the Dent Medal, the annual international musicological award of the Royal Musical Association. A visiting professor at the University of Chicago (1992), he was appointed an honorary member of the American Musicological Society in 2001. In 2015, the Société Suisse de Musicologie (Swiss Society of Musicology) awarded him the Glarean Prize.
He has published, among others: Monteverdi, Turin, EDT 1985 (in Spanish: Madrid, Turner; in English: Cambridge, Cambridge University Press); Il secolo cantante. Storia del libretto d’opera nel Seicento, Bologna, Il Mulino 1990 and Rome, Bulzoni 2003; Metro e canto nell’opera italiana, Turin, EdT 2007; Rossini. L’uomo, l’artista, il mito, Turin, UTET Grandi Opere 2018 (in German: Rossini. Künstler, Mensch und Mythos, Leipzig, Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2019).
He edited the volumes Il madrigale tra Cinque e Seicento (Bologna, Il Mulino 1988), Libretti d’opera italiani (together with Giovanna Gronda: Milan, Mondadori 1997), Rossini nelle raccolte Piancastelli di Forlì (Lucca, LIM 2001), and the critical edition of: Rossini, Sinfonie giovanili (Pesaro, Rossini Foundation 1998); Marenzio, Il nono libro di madrigali a cinque voci (Milan, Suvini Zerboni 2000).
In addition to numerous articles in specialist journals and conference proceedings, he has published on Donizetti: Donizetti ritratto in piedi, Bergamo, Sestante 2016; the critical edition of Anna Bolena, Milan-Bergamo, Ricordi – Donizetti Foundation 2017; Gaetano Donizetti. Carteggi e Documenti 1797-1830, Bergamo, Donizetti Foundation (Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Gaetano Donizetti), 2018.
Maria Grazia Panigada is theatre advisor with considerable professional experience of narrative theatre in the museum context. By adopting a didactic approach, she has been leading theatre workshops aimed at students, teachers, and adults for twenty years. Lately, she has tested the narrative approach in museum guides and museum mediators.
As far as her role as artistic director is concerned, she curates the Theatre festival, plans and coordinates cultural events and shows which involve several Italian institutions.
From 2000 to 2010, she curated the Altri Percorsi festival of the Donizetti Theatre in Bergamo, where she also worked as artistic director and coordinator of a scientific committee from 2005 to 2010 curating the theatre and Carnevali festivals. Since 2015, she is the artistic director of the Donizetti Theatre and the Teatro Sociale in Bergamo for the theatre sector, and she is artistic advisor for the events organised by the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Bergamo.
Among her publications and essays: Città luogo d’incontro. Altri percorsi 2006-2009, “Quaderni dello Spettacolo”, n. 87, Teatro Donizetti, Bergamo, 2009; “La scuola e la città: progetti per un sapere condiviso” in Teatro, didattica attiva, intercultura. Teatri visibili e teatri invisibili, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2009; “La risposta dei ragazzi: alcune riflessioni” in Emozionalità e teatro, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2008.
Joe Lovano has been one of the most distinguished protagonists of the international jazz scene for decades. He is considered to be one of today’s leading specialists of the tenor sax but he also plays other types of saxophones as well as the clarinet, flute and drums.
With a Grammy Award and 14 other nominations behind him, he has won Down Beat Magazine’s critics’ and readers’ surveys countless times as tenor saxophonist, musician of the year, and album of the year. He has also received numerous prizes from Jazz Times and the Jazz Journalists Association. The Italian monthly magazine Musica Jazz awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Top Jazz 2022 referendum.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, on 29 December 1952 to a family of Sicilian origin, he was introduced to music and jazz in particular by his father Tony ‘Big T’ Lovano, who taught him the basics of the saxophone. Then, after graduating from Euclid High School in 1971, he enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston where he studied with Herb Pomeroy and Gary Burton and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1998.
His collaborations with the groups of organists Jack McDuff and Lonnie Smith, with the orchestras of Woody Herman and drummer Mel Lewis, with Paul Motian, John Scofield, Enrico Rava and Dave Douglas are worth mentioning. As a leader, he has recorded for major record labels such as Soul Note, Blue Note and ECM.
Moreover, composer Mark Anthony Turnage wrote a Concerto for saxophone and chamber orchestra entitled “A Man Descending” for him, which has been performed all over the world.
Also very active on the music teaching front, Joe Lovano has taught at Berklee College of Music and is a frequent guest lecturer at New York University’s Jazz Program, Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music, as well as being invited by universities around the world. Since 2009, he has been a faculty member of the Global Jazz Institute at Berklee headed by Danilo Pérez.

Institutional Partner

Main Partner

With the support

With the contribution of

Communication partner

Technical partner

Donizetti Opera festival sponsor 

Donizetti Opera festival is in collaboration with

Special thanks to the supporter of  Fondazione Teatro Donizetti (artbonus.gov.it)
AMBIENTA | A2A | ATB SERVIZI | AUTOMHA | BREMBOMATIC | CONFINDUSTRIA BERGAMO | COSTIM | CRS IMPIANTI | CX CENTAX | EFFEGI | FECS | FERRETTICASA | FLOW METER | GIOIELLERIA ROTA | GRUPPO ALIMENTARE AMBROSINI | GRUPPO RULMECA | ICB | IMPRESA EDILE STRADALE ARTIFONI | IRE OMBA | LEVORATO | LOVATO ELECTRIC | MA.BO | MILESTONE | MONTELLO | M. S. AMBROGIO | NUOVA DEMI | OMB VALVES | PANESTETIC | RI.GOM.MA | 3V GREEN EAGLE | SACBO | STUCCHI GROUP | TRUSSARDI PETROLI | ZANETTI

Special thanks to the Donizetti Ambassadors who support the activities of Donizetti Opera festival with Art Bonus:

Alfaparf Group • Allegrini • ANCE Associazione Nazionale Costruttori Edili Bergamo • Assolari Luigi & C. • Automha • Beltrami Linen • Calfin • Caseificio Defendi Luigi • Dalmine • Diachem • FraMar • Immobiliare della Fiera • Intertrasport • Iterchimica • Lovato Electric • LVF Valve Solutions • MAP • Mazzoleni – Specialisti nella nutrizione • Montello • Neodecortech • OMB Valves • F.lli Pellegrini • Persico • Qintesi • Sabo • Sinergia • Sistel • Stucchi • Vanoncini

Institutional Partner

Main partner

With the support of

With the contribution of

Communication partner

Technical partner

Donizetti Opera festival sponsor

Donizetti Opera festival is in collaboration with

Special thanks to the supporter of  Fondazione Teatro Donizetti (artbonus.gov.it)
AMBIENTA | A2A | ATB SERVIZI | AUTOMHA | BREMBOMATIC | CONFINDUSTRIA BERGAMO | COSTIM | CRS IMPIANTI | CX CENTAX | EFFEGI | FECS | FERRETTICASA | FLOW METER | GIOIELLERIA ROTA | GRUPPO ALIMENTARE AMBROSINI | GRUPPO RULMECA | ICB | IMPRESA EDILE STRADALE ARTIFONI | IRE OMBA | LEVORATO | LOVATO ELECTRIC | MA.BO | MILESTONE | MONTELLO | M. S. AMBROGIO | NUOVA DEMI | OMB VALVES | PANESTETIC | RI.GOM.MA | 3V GREEN EAGLE | SACBO | STUCCHI GROUP | TRUSSARDI PETROLI | ZANETTI
Special thanks to the Donizetti Ambassadors who support the activities of Donizetti Opera festival with Art Bonus:
Alfaparf Group • Allegrini • ANCE Associazione Nazionale Costruttori Edili Bergamo • Assolari Luigi & C. • Automha • Beltrami Linen • Calfin • Caseificio Defendi Luigi • Dalmine • Diachem • FraMar • Immobiliare della Fiera • Intertrasport • Iterchimica • Lovato Electric • LVF Valve Solutions • MAP • Mazzoleni – Specialisti nella nutrizione • Montello • Neodecortech • OMB Valves • F.lli Pellegrini • Persico • Qintesi • Sabo • Sinergia • Sistel • Stucchi • Vanoncini