20/08 at 8.30pm (BST) and 9.30pm (Italian time)
Festival dei Due Mondi
Piazza Duomo, Spoleto
Opera marking the beginning of the Festival
Orfeo
By Claudio Monteverdi
Accademia Bizantina
Pier Luigi Pizzi director, settings and costumes
Ottavio Dantone conductor
Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi, is the most polished form of melodrama, a blend of music and theatre: from musical interpretations of the Orpheus myth to a new form of dramatic entertainment which Claudio Monteverdi presented for the first time at the Gonzaga court in Mantua.
Symbolically, Festival dei Due Mondi di Spoleto 2020 opens with this opera which continues after four centuries to be regarded as a beacon of the musical scene in Italy and abroad. Under the direction of Ottavio Dantone, Accademia Bizantina will perform the story of Orfeo.
Spoleto in Umbria hosts the Festival dei Due Mondi, a meeting place of cultures: it started in 1958 from an initiative of the composer Gian Carlo Menotti who saw it as an ideal venue to celebrate the arts in all its shapes.
For further information: www.festivaldispoleto.com
The performance can be viewed freely in streaming and on demand for 48 hours, subject to registration on: http://www.italiafestival.tv/
#ESTATEALLITALIANA