Paris, new Arena Opera Festival season presented

For the third year, the stage of the Sicilian Theatre at the Italian Embassy in Paris hosted the Fondazione Arena di Verona for the presentation of the 2024 and 2025 seasons of the Arena Opera Festival and the American tour that will see Italian opera singers land overseas in the United States and Canada in May.

Ambassador Emanuela D'Alessandro and the Superintendent Cecilia Gasdìa welcomed a large audience of journalists and operators from the French cultural, musical and tourist sector, to whom the rich programme of 50 evenings was illustrated. It will be opened on 7 June by an international gala event to celebrate UNESCO's recognition of the practice of opera singing in Italy as an intangible cultural heritage. The centenary of Giacomo Puccini's death will also be celebrated, whose immortal operas such as La Bohème, Tosca and Turandot will be performed.

Ambassador D'Alessandro recalled that "the Arena Festival, hosted in one of the most iconic venues in Italy, is a true Italian excellence, an event of absolute international prestige and an appointment not to be missed in the Italian cultural calendar, and not only for opera enthusiasts, thanks to the tradition of dissemination and inclusion that is typical of this great cultural and artistic institution".

"It is a sensational year for Opera," said Cecilia Gasdìa "the attention is very high all over the world and there are numerous international realities that will host us in order to make the Arena Festival known throughout the world. These events allow us to meet a multifaceted audience and to intercept the interest of those who have never been to the Arena, as well as to build international relations for the future of the Opera".

The evening ended with the performances of sopranos Yeajin Jeon and Sara Cortolezzis, tenor Galeano Salas and baritone Youngjun Park, masterfully accompanied at the piano by Superintendent Cecilia Gasdìa, who offered a first taste of the programme of the next season of the Arena di Verona Opera Festival on the notes of Puccini, Verdi and Giordano.