200.Com IX edition
Arena Teatro Sociale Como
Thursday June 29, Saturday July 1 and Monday July 3, 2023 – h. 21.00
Aida
Music by Giuseppe Verdi
Director Alessio Pizzech
Conductor Enrico Lombardi
Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, the IX edition of 200.Com A project for the city, will be on stage at the Arena of Teatro Sociale for 3 repetitions: Thursday June 29, Saturday July 1 and Monday July 3, 2023 at h. 21.00.
As always, AsLiCo’s participatory opera will inaugurate the Festival Como Città della Musica, which will be at its sixteenth edition this year.
“I am very honoured to direct this project. – states Alessio Pizzech – Working with so many people is a great responsibility, but also a great opportunity, and we are all happy to finally start this opera, we have been longing for it and waiting for it because we were supposed to do it before the pandemic. I am happy to see so many people dedicating their time to art, because it means that there still is a great civil sense in theatre and that it is important to work for oneself, but also for the audience. Every performance is an opportunity to build community, and right now is what we need. We hope that music will unite our hearts!”. Aida had already been the title chosen for the 2020 edition and then abandoned due to Covid. “So much has happened in these years – the director continues – The pandemic, the wars, they have changed the world, they have changed us, and they have also changed my Aida. Now her love between two sides, two fronts, is more relevant than ever.”
Alongside the director Alessio Pizzech, the other key figure will be the orchestra conductor: conducting Aida will be M° Enrico Lombardi, now well known to Como audiences for having conducted G. Rossini’s La Cenerentola in the “Opera domani” 2022 project and OperaLombardia’s La traviata last December.
“I am obviously very happy to be conducting an opera as important as Aida! – says M° Lombardi – The fact that the chorus is made up of non-professionals is a nice challenge, and I think this aspect is an added value because it means that there is a great and genuine passion behind it! I have worked for a long time with non-professional choirs and I have always been impressed by this desire to make music together, perhaps after having worked all day in another field.
In short, I am very curious to direct this production, especially at the Sociale in Como, where I now feel ‘at home’!”.
TO JOIN THE CHORUS:
Federica Giglio
200@teatrosocialecomo.it
DIRECTOR ALESSIO PIZZECH’S BIOGRAPHY
Alessio Pizzech, year 1972, is an all-round showman. He took up singing as a child, worked in a circus until he was 18 and was described by critics as one of the most significant Italian directors at a very young age. With extraordinary energy, he has staged around 150 shows between prose and opera, collaborating with all the major Italian theatres and festivals. His activity is multifaceted, both in prose and musical theatre, as well as artistic director of cultural institutions and projects. Of particular relevance is his activity as a trainer since 1993 in Italy and abroad. He has to his credit a contribution to the publication “I Teatri della scuola” published by the Province of Pisa. He teaches acting at the National Academy of Ancient Drama in Syracuse. He regularly holds acting masterclasses for important Italian institutions such as the Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto and Aslico, and abroad for various conservatories including Beirut and Stavanger in Norway. He is the artistic director of the Teatro De Filippo in Cecina and of the ‘InOpera’ festival of the Municipality of Rosignano Marittimo.
CONDUCTOR ENRICO LOMBARDI’S BIOGRAPHY
After studying piano, organ and composition, he graduated with top marks, praise and mention in Choral Music and Choir Conducting at the ‘G. Frescobaldi’ Conservatory in Ferrara and in Orchestral Conducting at the ‘L. Cherubini’ Conservatory in Florence. He also graduated in History of Music at the University of Bologna.
He has participated in several master classes with renowned teachers. He was a finalist in the “Nino Rota” International Conducting Competition (2019), winning the prize of the Magna Grecia Orchestra. He collaborates with the Collegium Musicum Almae Matris (Bologna), with which he frequently studies and performs lesser-known works. For the Ut Orpheus publishing house, he edited the singing and piano reduction of Saverio Mercadante’s opera Francesca da Rimini, performed at the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca under the baton of Fabio Luisi. As Francesco Lanzillotta’s assistant, he worked at the Opéra national de Lorraine, at the Valli and Pavarotti Theatres in Reggio Emilia and Modena, and at the Macerata Opera Festival. He has collaborated with the Roma Sinfonietta and Magna Grecia orchestras, while at the theatre of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino he conducted the intermezzo Il Giuocatore by Luigi Cherubini. He toured various Italian theatres with G. Rossini’s La Cenerentola (project ‘Opera domani’ – AsLiCo), and collaborated with the Milan Symphonic Orchestra, where he leads the Junior Symphonic Orchestra. He conducted for OperaLombardia La Traviata directed by Luca Baracchini in the 2022/23 Season.
