Four titles for three new productions revolving around the theme of “marriage” addressed in different facets:
at the Teatro Donizetti Caterina Cornaro and Il furioso nell’isola di S. Domingo and at the Teatro Sociale the diptych formed by Il campanello and Deux hommes et une femme
In the main roles great performers such as Carmela Remigio, Mariangela Sicilia, Paolo Bordogna, Alessandro Corbelli, Vito Priante, Enea Scala and Bruno Taddia, who will be joined by younger artists such as Riccardo Fassi and Giulia Mazzola and the students of the Bottega Donizetti
On the podium, in addition to artistic and musical director Riccardo Frizza, two young talents such as Alessandro Palumbo and Enrico Pagano
Directed by Francesco Micheli, Manuel Renga and Stefania Bonfadelli
Bergamo, 14 to 30 November 2025
Tickets on sale from 21 June 2025
It will be the first edition signed by Riccardo Frizza, in the dual role of artistic and musical director, that of Donizetti Opera 2025, an international festival dedicated to the famous composer from Bergamo, which will enliven the theatres of the “City of Gaetano Donizetti” from 14 to 30 November.
Donizetti Opera is organised by the Donizetti Theatre Foundation of Bergamo chaired by Giorgio Berta under the general direction of Massimo Boffelli, with the support of the Municipality of Bergamo. It is also realised thanks to the support of Allianz (Main Partner of the Donizetti Theatre Foundation of Bergamo), Intesa Sanpaolo, SIAD and a growing number of partner companies and realities adhering to the Donizetti Ambassadors project that support the festival through Art Bonus.
“The Donizetti Opera 2025 program – comments Riccardo Frizza – already reflects the path indicated by the three-year guidelines that we presented last January and on which we have worked carefully in recent months, starting with a greater internationalization of the festival. In fact, in addition to the co-production with the Teatro Real in Madrid, one of the most prestigious theaters in the world, this vision is also realized in the collaboration with Opera Rara, which will allow the public to listen, over a three-year period starting this year, to the complete Romanze by Donizetti, including some in world premiere, within the Sunday morning concert series. Furthermore, the attention to the voice and Donizetti’s music is the beating heart of the initiatives on the program: the four operas, all proposed in new productions, present casts made up of internationally renowned artists alongside young talents, which a festival has the duty to promote and discover. I think of my two colleagues on the podium, Alessandro Palumbo and Enrico Pagano, and then of Carmela Remigio, Mariangela Sicilia, Paolo Bordogna, Alessandro Corbelli, Vito Priante, Enea Scala, Bruno Taddia, who will work with Giulia Mazzola, Riccardo Fassi and the talented students of the Bottega Donizetti, a fundamental reality for the training of a generation of artists who will be able to tackle the Donizetti repertoire with awareness. The focus on young people will also see the imminent opening of an exceptional call for applications, aimed at librettists under 35, for the new young opera dedicated to Gaetano Donizetti and his brother Giuseppe, which will debut in 2026. And again, the valorization of the Donizetti network and the involvement of the city of Bergamo will find in the Donizetti Opera opportunities for meeting and discovery, together with the great attention always paid to activities for children and families, so that the name of Donizetti is increasingly a social glue and a point of reference for the entire community”.
The Donizetti Opera 2025 presents, therefore, for three consecutive weekends four titles proposed in three new stagings: at the Donizetti Theatre Caterina Cornaro will be staged in its modern première, with the entire poetic text set to music by Donizetti and the finale according to the composer’s wishes (Friday 14th, Saturday 22nd and Sunday 30th November), and Il furioso nell’isola di S. Domingo in the complete version of the 1833 score (Sunday 16th, Friday 21st and Saturday 29th November). Domingo in the complete version of the 1833 score (Sunday 16th, Friday 21st and Saturday 29th November); at the Teatro Sociale, in Città Alta, the diptych formed by the one-act plays Il campanello, in the 1837 version, and Deux hommes et une femme in the original French version will be presented (Saturday 15th, Sunday 23rd and Friday 28th November).
The philological work on the works chosen for the 2025 edition was supported and followed up by the Donizetti Theatre Foundation Study Centre directed by Paolo Fabbri, who helped identify the critical editions of the scores published by Casa Ricordi, produced with the contribution and collaboration of the Bergamo Foundation.
‘The plots that the Donizetti Opera 2025 festival brings to the stage,’ explains Paolo Fabbri, “appear to be variations on a single theme: marriage. In Caterina Cornaro, the protagonist would like to enter into a marriage with her beloved, but political reasons, harsh to the point of blackmail, force her into a different kind of union. A cheating and contemptuous wife has made the Furioso lose his wits. The imaginative gambits of an ex of the bride, in Campanello, prevent the newly married man from spending his wedding night with her. In Deux hommes, a redivivus husband and the new bride compete to get rid of une femme too strong-willed and even manic’.
Confirmed for this eleventh edition of the Donizetti Opera are the leading ensembles of recent years, with the Orchestra Donizetti Opera engaged in the two titles at the Donizetti Theatre, the Orchestra Gli Originali – a formation that adopts period instruments – at the Teatro Sociale, and the Accademia Teatro alla Scala Chorus conducted by Salvo Sgrò in all the productions.
Caterina Cornaro and Il furioso nell’isola di S. Domingo
The last opera composed by Gaetano Donizetti will open the festival: Caterina Cornaro, a title created on the libretto by Giacomo Sacchero in 1842 for the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna, at the request of the impresario Bartolomeo Merelli, but then staged in 1844 at the San Carlo in Naples. In the Neapolitan city the opera met with a resounding failure dictated by a series of reasons, including a large reworking of the libretto by the censors that affected the clarity of the plot and an orchestration conceived for an Austrian theatre. Hence Donizetti’s desire to intervene substantially on the dramaturgy in the third part of the opera: this very finale, of which the manuscript exists, will be performed for the first time in Bergamo, just as Sacchero’s poetic text will be the original one before the interventions of the Neapolitan censors. The critical edition adopted at the festival was edited by Eleonora Di Cintio for Casa Ricordi and will be performed by the Donizetti Opera Orchestra under the baton of artistic and musical director Riccardo Frizza, with the Choir of the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, led by Salvo Sgrò.
The story of the queen of Cyprus, who became such thanks to a singular friendship between her two contenders, with the power of the Council of Ten ready to strike down anyone who got in the way of the interests of the Venetian Republic, will be staged at the Donizetti Theatre under the direction of Francesco Micheli, who says: “Caterina Cornaro is in fact the last opera that Donizetti composed, at the beginning of the troubled decline of his physical and mental health. The new critical edition, which I have followed in recent years as artistic director of the festival, allows us to fully understand this authentic swan song where the central theme is precisely the slow fading away of the male protagonist. For me, this is a great opportunity to say goodbye to the festival and pay homage to the great Gaetano. Restoring the shocking beauty of this unknown masterpiece is an incredible feat, reminding me of the incredible days of Ange de Nisida‘.
The new world premiere production, co-produced with the Teatro Real in Madrid, will feature sets by Matteo Paoletti Franzato, costumes by Alessio Rosati, lights by Alessandro Andreoli, and dramaturg Alberto Mattioli. In the title role, one of the audience’s favorites, Carmela Remigio, returns to the Donizetti Opera, alongside Enea Scala‘s Gerardo and Vito Priante‘s Lusignano. Riccardo Fassi will play Mocenigo, while Fulvio Valenti will be Andrea Cornaro and Francesco Lucii will play the double role of Strozzi and Un cavaliere del re.
Caterina Cornaro opens on Friday 14 November at 8.00 p.m. and is repeated on Saturday 22 November also at 8.00 p.m. and Sunday 30 November at 3.30 p.m. The preview dedicated to the Under-30s is scheduled for Tuesday 11 November at 5 p.m.
Entirely different fate to that which befell Caterina Cornaro was met by Il furioso nell’isola di S. Domingo, first performed at the Teatro Valle in Rome in 1833, where it was an immediate success with dozens and dozens of performances throughout Italy: in Naples, it was even performed in three theatres at the same time. The Donizetti Opera 2025 offers the critical edition by Eleonora Di Cintio for Casa Ricordi, which restores a couple of cuts made during the season of the Roman debut, thus inserting the complete version of the dry recitative that follows the duet between Cardenio and Eleonora ‘La mia vittima è qui… Apri il ciglio’ and the use of the Sinfonia instead of the Preludio.
The opera centres on the figure of Cardenio, a character inspired by the senseless man from Sierra Morena in Cervantes’ Don Quixote and the protagonist of an anonymous five-act play from which Jacopo Ferretti drew the libretto. The role was played by Giorgio Ronconi, considered by most to be the first “modern” baritone.
The new production of the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti is directed by Manuel Renga, who has curated several projects for children at the Donizetti Opera and who this year, given the acclaim he has received, has been called to tackle a title from the festival, in addition to the Opera Family inspired by this Donizetti work. The show will have sets and costumes by Aurelio Colombo and lights by Emanuele Agliati. Renga introduces his reading as follows: «A photograph and the fog in the mind clears. Or so it seems. Il furioso nell’Isola di S. Domingo, one of Donizetti’s most resounding successes, is a semi-serious opera in which the protagonist is mad and furious, like the madman of the Sierra Morena in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Madness is commonly spoken of as a plant whose branches can be cut, but the roots remain forever. In the new staging, the key to understanding the whole story is precisely the root of madness, which years after the events on the island, gives new life. The mad old man Cardenio, isolated in his world of memories closed in the past, retired to a nursing home, through the few objects of a distant life returns to the times of the adventure on the island of S. Domingo: the meeting with Marcella and Bartolomeo, the relationship with Kaidamà, the return of his beloved Eleonora, the leap into the void, into the depths of the ocean. Memories, however, become confused, feelings become blurred, reality and fantasy are no longer distinguishable, until the strength of will and love emerge to restore clarity and serenity to life: true love awakens, the one for which it is even permissible to go mad.
The role of Cardenio will be played by the baritone Paolo Bordogna, while Mariangela Sicilia, winner of this year’s 44th edition of the “Abbiati” Award, will make her debut at the Donizetti Opera in the role of Eleonora. Bruno Taddia will play Kaidamà, while Giulia Mazzola will play Marcella. Santiago Ballerini and Valerio Morelli will be Fernando and Bartolomeo, respectively. Alessandro Palumbo will lead the Donizetti Opera Orchestra and the Chorus of the Accademia Teatro alla Scala.
Il furioso nell’isola di S. Domingo debuts on Sunday 16 November at 3.30 p.m., with repeat performances on Friday 21 November at 8 p.m. and Saturday 29 November at 8 p.m. The Under30 premiere will be on Thursday 13 November at 5 pm.
Il campanello and Deux hommes et une femme
The curtain of the Teatro Sociale in Bergamo Alta will open on the diptych formed by the farce Il campanello e dall’opéra-comique Deux hommes et une femmeIn the first case, the young Serafina is betrothed to the apothecary Don Pistacchio, but her beloved Enrico, thanks to a thousand disguises, will interrupt her wedding night by constantly ringing the pharmacy bell. The protagonist of the second opera is Rita, married to the violent Gasparo, but who is united in her second marriage with the timid Pepè, believing her first husband to have disappeared at sea. Gasparo’s sudden return generates a paroxysmal “tira e molla”, in which the protagonist herself ends up at the centre.
Il Campanello will be performed with the critical edition edited by Ilaria Narici for Casa Ricordi with the contribution of the Municipality of Bergamo. The version is the one from 1837 for the Teatro del Fondo in Naples, with sung recitatives instead of spoken dialogues present in the first version of the previous year written for the Teatro Nuovo. This opera proves – once again – that Gaetano Donizetti was a true man of the theatre, as well as a generous artist: in fact, he gave the score of the farce to the Teatro Nuovo company which was in dire straits. «It is noteworthy – explains Paolo Fabbri – that, in Il Campanello, Donizetti presented himself as a one hundred percent author: of the music but also of the libretto, demonstrating his ability as a theatrical poet, assimilated on the field but also the fruit of a creative disposition that can rightly be defined as ‘natural’, which was also manifested with the words, as well as with the notes».
Se Caterina Cornaro è stata l’ultima opera a debuttare con Donizetti in vita, Deux hommes et une femme rientra in quel gruppo di lavori che videro la ribalta dopo la morte del compositore. Venne ideato per il Teatro dell’Opéra-Comique nel 1839 su libretto di Gustave Vaëz, autore di versi ricchi di cinismo e decisamente poco inclini alla parità di genere che, dopo un tentativo di portare in scena l’opera in una versione italiana al Teatro del Fondo di Napoli andato fallito, riuscì a far eseguire la partitura nel 1860 all’Opéra-Comique con il titolo Rita, ou le mari battu. A Bergamo Deux hommes et une femme sarà eseguita nella versione originale francese, con il libretto derivato dalla fonte autografa nell’edizione critica a cura di Paolo A. Rossini per Casa Ricordi, con la collaborazione di Francesco Bellotto.
For both operas, the staging will be curated by a single creative team, entirely female: the direction is by Stefania Bonfadelli, the sets by Serena Rocco, the costumes by Valeria Bettella and the lights by Fiammetta Baldiserri. “I find the idea of uniting these two operas that seem like one and the same thing particularly happy – says the director. One penetrates the other both from a musical point of view and in the dramaturgical plot, first of all, for the fact that in Campanello a husband leaves and in Deux hommes et une femme one returns after many years, but above all for that frankly French flavor between the “boulevard” and the “vaudeville”, to which Donizetti delivers them, distancing them from the typicality of his most famous comic operas. Here it seems that Donizetti leaves room only for fun tout court, even a little absurd if you like, without obvious psychological implications. The two works go beyond both farce and opera buffa to wink a little at Feydeau and a little at Ionesco, in surreal marital relationships, disguises and recognitions».
Leading the period instrument orchestra Gli Originali will be Enrico Pagano, included in 2021 by Forbes Italia in the list of 100 Under 30 Italian leaders of the future, conductor of a cast entirely made up of students of the Bottega Donizetti 2025, curated by Giulio Zappa. This group of young talents will be mentored by Alessandro Corbelli, interpreter of the role of Gasparo in Deux hommes et une femme. The participation will be completed by the Chorus of the Accademia Teatro alla Scala.
The diptych is proposed on Saturday 15 November at 8.00 pm, Sunday 23 November at 3.30 pm and Friday 28 November at 8.00 pm, with an Under30 preview on Wednesday 12 November at 5.00 pm.
The new collaboration with Opera Rara
Donizetti Opera’s international collaborations are expanding thanks to the new partnership that is developing in recent weeks with Opera Rara, a British cultural institution that aims to rediscover, study and disseminate rarely performed or forgotten compositions through recordings and live performances. These include the hundreds of songs, arias, barcarolles, and cantatas for voice and piano composed by Gaetano Donizetti, which Opera Rara has been bringing back to light since 2023. At the festival, the performers of the Bottega Donizetti will be the protagonists, among the most famous pieces and some precious unreleased ones, on the occasion of the new Sunday morning appointment at the Teatro Donizetti, which will thus complete the programme of each weekend of the event, which will also feature Donizetti’s chamber vocal repertoire.
Dies Natalis and Opera Family
The Donizetti Opera program is completed with the great celebration on the occasion of Gaetano Donizetti’s Dies natalis, on November 29, which will involve the entire city from the morning. A special program for an equally special day, which will end with the performance at 8:00 pm at the Donizetti Theater of the opera Il furioso nell’isola di S. Domingo.
But already in the afternoon the Donizetti Theatre will be joyfully invaded by the family audience thanks to the Opera Family program that, every Saturday of the festival, will propose an activity for adults and children. On the composer’s birthday, you can attend and interact with the participatory opera taken from Il furioso nell’isola di S. Domingo, proposed with the title Il furioso Gaetano nell’isola di S. Domingo, to which is added the subtitle Ovvero le mirabolanti memorie d’un musicale visionario, directed by Manuel Renga, with the musical dramaturgy by Alberto Zanardi in collaboration with Mariagrazia Mercaldo and the music of Gaetano Donizetti conducted by Giulio Arnofi. The score will be performed by the Ensemble Donizetti Opera who will take up the instruments of the Orchestra del Mare, made by the Liuteria del carcere di Opera with the wood of the migrants’ boats, as a sign of the attention that the festival pays to the crucial themes of our contemporary world. The show, recommended for ages 8 and up, will also be open to school audiences with a double performance on November 26 and 27 at 9:30 and 11:30, and on November 28 at 9:00 and 11:00.
But Opera Family’s offerings don’t stop there. Activities begin on Saturday, November 15 with the workshop Qui Lucia, led by Clelia Epis, offering participants the chance to explore treasures from the iconographic archive of the Donizetti Foundation’s Lucia di Lammermoor productions, along with an interactive tour of the Teatro Donizetti’s monumental spaces (workshop at 3:00 PM, tour at 4:00 PM; recommended for ages 8 and up).
Finally, for boys and girls aged 3 and up, on Saturday 22 November at 4:00 pm at the Ridotto Gavazzeni of the Teatro Donizetti, Piccolo Signor Rumore will be performed, Enrico Gabrielli’s story-game with drawings, noises and music, preceded by a creative workshop at 3:00 pm. With Enrico Gabrielli on the piano, Sebastiano De Gennaro on percussion and noises and Marcello Corti on brass and narrator.
CineDOpera, the film club dedicated to Donizetti
In these months that separate us from the start of the 2025 festival, the film club proposed by the Centro Studi della Fondazione Teatro Donizetti in the Sala della Musica “M. Tremaglia” of the Teatro Donizetti is preparing the public for the language and music of Donizetti. One appointment per month on the weekend, from May to October, from 3:00 pm to approximately 6:30 pm with free admission until all available seats are taken, with reservations recommended on Eventbrite. The calendar therefore proposes, on Saturday 17 May, the title Chiara e Serafina, staged for the Donizetti Opera 2022, introduced by Candida Mantica, who on Sunday 15 June returns to present L’aio nell’emozione, again in the staging of DO 2022. On Sunday 6 July it will be the turn of Livio Aragona and Maurizio Merisio with Rosmonda d’Inghilterra, from DO 2016, to then meet again at the end of the summer, on Sunday 14 September with Paolo Fabbri who introduces Il diluvio universale (DO 2023). Candida Mantica will close the screenings on Sunday 5 October with La fille du régiment (DO 2021).
Elena Carnevali, Mayor of the Municipality of Bergamo, states: “The Donizetti Opera has become an unmissable event not only for Bergamo, but for the entire Italian and international cultural scene. It is much more than a festival: it is a living heritage of our city, an expression of its profound identity and its welcoming, creative, cultured spirit. With the new artistic direction of Riccardo Frizza, the bond with Gaetano Donizetti is forcefully renewed, in the name of a vision that combines continuity and innovation, and aims at greater internationalization starting from the co-production of the inaugural title. This is how Bergamo confirms itself as a vital center of musical and operatic culture, an ambassador in the world of a legacy that speaks Italian, but that belongs to all humanity. At the heart of the festival there is also great attention to the new generations: young artists find space here to grow and train, while children, families and schools are involved in paths that make music and theater a shared good. I like to remember among the many initiatives the call for young librettists in order to search for new talents for contemporary opera. Because this is the deepest meaning of Donizetti Opera: to preserve the past while looking to the future».
Giorgio Berta, President of the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti, continues: «The Donizetti Opera festival is the result of a collective effort that brings together institutions, artists and the public, as well as partners, supporters and Ambassadors of Donizetti, whom I take this opportunity to thank for their precious support, all united in an ambitious cultural project that sees the voice and music at the center. With Riccardo Frizza, a new course has begun, marked by continuity in innovation, as the inaugural opera well represents. In fact, despite the natural changeover in artistic direction, the fertile relationship between the Foundation and Francesco Micheli continues this year in different forms, but with the common goal of enhancing the figure of the great composer from Bergamo, Gaetano Donizetti. In this sense, the collaboration in the direction of the opera Caterina Cornaro fits in, as well as the confirmation by M° Frizza of the titles proposed by his predecessor for the program, on which the new artistic and musical director has worked by carefully chiseling the choice of voices, with leading names of the bel canto repertoire, in the sign of a desired continuity of intent, widely witnessed».
Massimo Boffelli, General Director of the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti, concludes: «Each edition of the Donizetti Opera is a creative and organizational challenge, which the entire Foundation faces with great enthusiasm, competence and professionalism. The festival continues to grow year after year, as demonstrated by the numbers, quality and visibility, in addition to the appreciation expressed by the audience, increasingly international, and by critics. With the artistic direction of Riccardo Frizza and a cast of great value, the 2025 edition marks a new important step forward, aimed at enthralling an increasingly wider audience that, starting from the involvement of all segments of spectators in our city, also creates important bonds beyond national borders. This with the primary objective of enhancing the Donizetti repertoire with a contemporary look and continuing to strengthen the prestige of the festival worldwide. And the 2025 program is concrete proof of this».
