Events

PRESENTATION AND CONCERT

Join us for the presentation of a new 5-year international initiative being launched now by Giuseppe Gerbino (Columbia), Claudio Orazi (Genoa's Carlo Felice Opera House), and Francesco Zimei (University of Trento) followed by a concert featuring works by Paganini, Rossini, and Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

Click here to register.

The event is currently sold out.  We encourage standby guests at the door.

PROGRAM

Opening Remarks: 

Barbara Faedda (Italian Academy, Columbia University)
Fabrizio Di Michele (Consul General of Italy in New York)

Speakers/Organizers: 

Giuseppe Gerbino (Columbia University)
Francesco Zimei (University of Trento; former Fellow of the Italian Academy) 
Claudio Orazi (General Manager of Genoa's Carlo Felice Opera House)

Concert Performers: 

Mezzo-soprano Giuseppina Bridelli is recognized as a leading Mozart, Monteverdi, and Rossini interpreter, performing roles such as Cherubino at both the Teatro San Carlo in Naples and the Opéra Royal de Versailles, and Corinna in Il viaggio a Reims at the Rossini Opera Festival. In 2023/2024 she opened the opera season at La Fenice with Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann and debuted at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in Monteverdi’s Ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. Her extensive discography includes Nino Rota’s Mysterium (Decca), Vivaldi’s L’Incoronazione di Dario (Naïve), and Rossini’s Péchés de vieillesse (Naxos).

Violinist Giuseppe Gibboni won the Paganini Violin Competition in Genoa in October 2021, at just 20 years old; he was the first Italian in 24 years to win the overall prize. He also won the audience choice prize and a special prize for the best interpretations of Paganini’s Capriccios and Violin Concerto. As winner of the Paganini Competition, he also had the opportunity to perform on the “Cannone,” Niccolò Paganini’s favorite instrument, built by Guarneri del Gesù in 1743.

Pianist Valentina Messa has won numerous first prizes in national and international competitions, including the Premio Venezia in 2000, the Luciano Gante of Pordenone in 2001, the 2005 edition of the Società Umanitaria competition in Milan, and the Premio Nazionale delle Arti in 2007. Since 2015, she has been the official pianist of the Paganini Prize in Genoa and has held the same role in the A. Postacchini International Violin Competition in Fermo and the Mazzacurati International Cello Competition in Turin.

Concert Program:      

Niccolò Paganini
Introduction and Variations in E-flat major, Op. 12, “Non più mesta” from La Cenerentola
Gioachino Rossini
“Di tanti palpiti” from Tancredi
Niccolò Paganini
Introduction and Variations in A major, Op. 13, “Di tanti palpiti” from Tancredi
Gioachino Rossini
“Assisa a’ piè d’un salice” from Otello
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco  
Concerto no. 3 per Violin and Orchestra, Second Movement (Lento, grave e triste)

ABOUT THE MUSICAL HISTORY

On November 29, 1825, the Park Theater in New York presented the first-ever season of Italian opera in the United States. The stars were the noted tenor Manuel García and his seventeen-year-old daughter, the mezzo-soprano who later gained fame across Europe and the Americas as Maria Malibran. This led to the enduring establishment of foreign-language opera in this city and the birth of the Metropolitan Opera in 1883.

Related: Read about a conference produced by the Italian Academy in 2018 (Lorenzo Da Ponte and the Birth of Italian Opera in New York) and the collected essays from that conference (Italian Opera in the United States, 1800–1850: At the Origins of a Cultural Migration).

Seating is limited and first come, first served. Priority will be given to those who register in advance. Check-in begins 30 minutes before the event and early arrival is suggested.

This event is in-person only.

^{Image above: John Searle (1783–1834), Park Theatre, 1822, New-York Historical Society}