Maestro Riccardo Frizza, internationally renowned conductor and former music director of Donizetti Opera since 2017, who was also appointed artistic director of the event last Dec. 4 by the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti Board of Directors, announces his vision for the festival for the three-year period 2025-2027. Under the sign of the word “evolution,” Maestro Frizza intends to continue the path taken in recent years with an innovative vision that combines continuity and the future.

If the event previously inaugurated its format by renewing its artistic programming and invading the city with the figure of Donizetti as an illustrious Bergamasque, it now aims for an evolution that brings the composer Gaetano Donizetti back to the center, the absolute protagonist, accompanied by a cultural project that aspires to consolidate the festival’s position among major international events.

Six fundamental guidelines will direct the event over the next three years, starting with internationality and high artistic quality, for a festival without borders. The Donizetti Opera, in fact, intends to strengthen and expand its international dimension, focusing even more on artistic quality and musicological research, to place itself among the great events of the world cultural scene. Productions of the highest level and an active dialogue with audiences beyond the borders will make the festival a point of reference for enthusiasts and experts in the field, but also for neophytes and the curious who will want to get closer to the corpus of the famous composer from Bergamo, attracted by the collateral events to the artistic programming.

Second strategic goal is building bridges between cultures through twinning and co-productions. The festival aims to position itself as a meeting place between different cultures and traditions: with this in mind, co-productions become true twinnings involving the Theater and the city. They unite communities, weave stories, stimulate new readings and visions, and create an artistic and cultural contamination that breaks down barriers and diversity, for a deeply inclusive event.

Third focal point make Bergamo the cradle of the Voice, thanks to renewed projects and new proposals that embrace different arts and disciplines. Starting with the Donizettian bel canto tradition, we celebrate the voice in all its forms as a contemporary symbol of excellence and creativity.

Fourth objective, the construction of a Donizetti Network: the festival will go on to consolidate the concept, which has been gaining momentum in recent years, of “Bergamo City of Donizetti,” aiming for further enhancement of the Foundation’s Study Center and the construction of a network that will make Bergamo the epicenter of Donizetti’s heritage to stimulate a worldwide dialogue.

Then, on the education and training side, initiatives will see Donizetti Opera for Life Skills: the festival renews its commitment to the new generations, integrating Life Skills, as recognized by the World Health Organization as positive behaviors in the emotional, cognitive and relational areas, which enable the individual to cope effectively with daily challenges, both in personal and relational and social terms, into the training paths. Educational programs, designed for children and youth, in collaboration with schools and institutes of all levels, connect dreams, expectations, challenges and visions of the new generations with the universal language of music, in order to guide them to listen to themselves and their own voice as an expression of their vocation.

Last point, completing the strategy, is the reflection that seesthe territory in the Theater and the Theater for the territory. The Donizetti Theater, with its prestigious festival, increasingly becomes the beating heart of creative Bergamo and becomes the “House of the City.” A living and accessible place, even beyond the performances, not only for tourists but for the whole community. Linked to this is an increasingly close and biunivocal dialogue with the city’s fervent third sector and the productive fabric of the area, invited to reflect on the concept of harmonious leadership.

“There is much of our Administration’s vision in new artistic director Riccardo Frizza’s project for Donizetti Opera 2025-2027: openness, inclusiveness and attractiveness. A project aimed at strengthening internationalization and relaunching the great composer Gaetano Donizetti, projecting Bergamo into the world on the notes of his music.

Culture, we have always said, is an engine of growth, a dynamic resource for building opportunities. Director Frizza’s project goes in this direction, weaving networks of collaboration and planning with other cities, countries and their cultures, valuing musicological and bel canto endeavors, investing in the education of new generations, and working to bring opera closer and closer to people, not just to passionate audiences. Opera, in fact, is a profoundly universal art, speaking to everyone, beyond technical skills or specific knowledge, always able to tell the passions, feelings and stories that belong to every human being.

Even those who are not “insiders” can enter the world of opera, because it does not require one to be an expert to be moved by a powerful voice, a poignant melody or a staging that amazes and sometimes questions. It is an immediate language that crosses time and borders, and it continues to speak to all those who want to get involved.

We expect, therefore, a lot from this new phase and we are confident that it will be a further step in establishing Bergamo as a city of culture and “evolution,”” says Elena Carnevali, Mayor of the City of Bergamo.

“Of the programming proposed by Riccardo Frizza, I particularly appreciate the term evolution: starting from a solid foundation and moving on to a subsequent stage of maturity, growing counting on a strong and structured identity. It is in line with what we hoped for this new phase of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation. The Donizetti Opera will have an increasingly international vocation, bringing new and unprecedented collaborations of our city with other national and European communities and generating new blood in the city’s artistic production as well. The theme of alliances is equally stimulating, especially with other important institutions in the city, so rich in different fields and disciplines. An alliance that will be able to express itself in the development of the theme of the “Voice,” the red thread of Donizetti’s production, and above all in the enhancement of Life Skills, a new and original way of dropping music into everyday life, with that usual attention to the younger generations that the Foundation has already expressed for some time,” says Sergio Gandi, Councillor for Culture of the City of Bergamo.

“The vision of Maestro Riccardo Frizza, formerly esteemed music director and now also artistic director of the Donizetti Opera in whom we place our full trust, has been favorably welcomed and shared by the Foundation’s Board of Directors, which has grasped its innovation in continuity. This project not only celebrates the centrality of the figure of Donizetti, but also confirms the prospect of a festival directed towards an increasingly international future. We are certain that, with his leadership, Donizetti Opera will reach extraordinary goals, consolidating Bergamo as the capital of the voice and bel canto, and a musical reference point in the world,” he continued Giorgio Berta, President of the Donizetti Theater Foundation.

“With the word ‘evolution’ we want to consolidate the role of a festival that stands not only as a high-level artistic event, but also as an engine of cultural, social and economic growth for Bergamo. Our city, home of the highest Donizetti studies, deserves greater international recognition for its ability to deepen, stimulate, innovate and innovate from tradition. This triennium will, therefore, see the focus on the establishment of networks and twinning, in which the dialogue with new international realities will bring the city and its Theater as an example of excellence and innovation,” adds Massimo Boffelli, General Director of the Foundation.

“After the revolution, of which I have been an active part in the past few years, that has rooted the festival in the fabric of the city of Bergamo, we now want to look ahead, strengthening the foundations built and imagining a future of growth with an international scope. I envision a festival that evolves without losing its identity, that experiments and consolidates starting from tradition and strong in its roots, like the figure of Gianandrea Gavazzeni, father of the so-called “Donizetti Renaissance,” with a gaze increasingly open to the world,” concludes Maestro Riccardo Frizza.

With this ambitious vision, artistic director Riccardo Frizza, aided by Marco Vinco in the role of programming coordinator and the renewed Donizetti Opera team, is preparing to write a new chapter in the cultural history of Bergamo and its theater, for an event that, in addition to the fall, will enliven the entire year and be a must-see event for audiences around the world.