Contact info
Address
Via Rossini, 24
61100 Pesaro
Italy
http://www.rossinioperafestival.it
Info
Tel: +39 0721 38001
Fax: +39 0721 3800220
rof@rossinioperafestival.it
http://www.rossinioperafestival.it
Via Rossini, 24
IT-61100 Pesaro
Administration
Tel: +39 0721 38001
Fax: +39 0721 3800220
rof@rossinioperafestival.it
Tickets
Tel: +39 0721 38001
Fax: +39 0721 3800220
rof@rossinioperafestival.it
Accountancy
Tel: +39 0721 38001
Fax: +39 0721 3800220
rof@rossinioperafestival.it
Rossini Opera Festival
The Rossini Opera Festival has developed its own very special atmosphere, which is not only an incentive to the work on stage and behind the scenes, but ends up by involving the operagoers themselves in a sense of solidarity binding together singers and musicians, musicologists, skilled workers, organizers and technicians, each of whom feels himself to be an important link in a great collective adventure.
This festival has been an EFA member since 1986.
Festival Programme
Each EFA member manages its own Calendar. In case there is no programme availabable for this year, please visit the festival's own website.
History
The Rossini Opera Festival is declared an ente autonomo (a state-recognized opera house) foundation, which promotes the only international operatic event dedicated exclusively to Gioachino Rossini; It aims to make known and to restore to the current operatic repertory the musical heritage of Rossini, which is still partly unknown today. When he died in 1868 Rossini left his entire fortune to the Town Council of Pesaro: this legacy gave birth to the Conservatory and the Foundation that bear his name.
In 1974 the Rossini Foundation, acting in collaboration with the Ricordi publishing house in Milan, undertook an important project from both the artistic and the publishing point of view: a critical edition of Rossini's complete works, in an estimated total of eighty volumes.
The Rossini Opera Festival was instituted in 1980 by the Town Council of Pesaro with the aim of supporting and following through the scientific work of the Rossini Foundation by producing performances in the theatre: this has given birth to a working laboratory programme in which the musicological, theatrical and publishing bodies combine in the effort to bring all the little-known Rossini canon back to life.
The development and growth of the event has also been made possible by the financial contributions of public and private bodies, such as the Ministero dello Spettacolo e dei Beni Culturali (the government ministry responsible for cultural and archeological activities), the Regional governmental board of the Marche, the Provincial government of Pesaro and Urbino, banks such as the Cassa di Risparmio di Pesaro (now re-named Banca delle Marche) and the Banca Popolare Pesarese e Ravennate (now the Banca Popolare dell'Adriatico), not to mention the official sponsor of the Festival since 1982, Scavolini, a leading local Pesaro industrial firm.
For the first five years of its existence the Rossini Opera Festival was under the direct control of the Pesaro Town Council, but then in 1985 it was declared an Association supported by the local town and provincial governments of Pesaro.
It was decreed by the Town Council that as from November 1993 the Festival could be legally denominated a Foundation, whilst still keeping its original name. The new organization is supported by the Pesaro Town Council, the Provincial government of Pesaro and Urbino, the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Pesaro, the Banca Popolare dell'Adriatico and the Scavolini Foundation. In this new institutional guise the governing body, of whom the Mayor of Pesaro is chairman, is appointed by an assembly of the supporting organizations.
The sovrintendente, or general director, is appointed by this same assembly; his is the responsibility for the artistic appointments and decisions, in which he is able to call upon the collaboration of the artistic director. The Rossini Foundation is automatically referred to for help in musicological matters, for they are the authority in all matters pertaining to the historical and technical aspects of the scores to be performed.
On 13 August 1993 the Italian Parliament unanimously approved the Special Law N. 319 "Regulations in support of the Rossini Opera Festival", which recognizes the Pesaro Festival's achievements in the revival of Rossini's operas as entitled to be included amongst the state-supervised works of restoration of the national artistic heritage.
In this same spirit also the Regional Council of the Marche passed in March 1996 a similar legislative measure, which deals specifically with the economical and tourist aspects of the Festival feed-back. The Rossini Opera Festival is a member of the European Festivals Association, and enjoys the patronage of the President of the Italian Republic.
