Stresa Music Festival Opens

Photo by Andrea Sacchi The 2013 Stresa Music Festival of concerts in sites around Lake Maggiore starts on 19 July and runs until early September. The 52nd Stresa Festival holds its concerts alongside and around Lake Maggiore, including at the Santa Caterina Hermitage, the Tapestry Hall in Palazzo Borromeo on Isola Bella, the Loggia del Cashmere looking out over the gardens on the Isola Madre, the Rocca Borromeo high above Angera, the Castello Visconteo in Vogogna, the Madonna di Campagna church on the outskirts of Verbania, the Chiesa Vecchia in Belgirate and Villa Ponti in Arona. The festival programme is based on music from the classic period and late 19th century, with occasional trips into the 20th century. The festival opens with the second edition of the Midsummer Jazz Concerts, a jazz festival on the banks of the lake from 19 to 21 July. Five open-air concerts will take place against the backdrop of paths along the Lungolago La Palazzola and the Borromeo Islands. From 25 to 28 July, the Musical Meditations part of the festival centres on renaissance and baroque music. The inaugural concert in the Palazzo dei Congressi is by the Gstaad Festival Orchestra. They will play Bedřich Smetana’s ‘La Moldava’ and Claude Debussy’s ‘La Mer’, with two pieces by Benjamin Britten, from ‘Peter Grimes’. The programme includes ‘Water’, a composition for piano and orchestra by Turkish pianist Fazil Say, who will interpret the piece himself. On 28 August, the Stresa Festival Orchestra performs at the Palacongressi. The programme includes the ‘Aria’ from Johann Sebastian Bach’s ‘Orchestral Suite No. 3’, Franz Schubert’s ‘Fifth Symphony’ and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s ‘Symphony No. 40, K 550’. Festival artistic director, Gianandrea Noseda, will be on stage on 1 September conducting the orchestra and choir of the Turin Teatro Regio in Giuseppe Verdi’s ‘String Quartet’, followed by Gioachino Rossini’s ‘Stabat Mater’. On 6 September, at the Palazzo dei Congressi, the Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca interprets two of Antonio Vivaldi’s works, ‘Le quattro stagioni’ (The Four Seasons) and the ‘Violin Concerto in D major, RV 212’, as well as Arcangelo Corelli’s ‘Concerti grossi II and IV’. The festival closes on 7 September with a concert by the Czech Philharmonic orchestra. Their program will start with ‘Šárka’ by Smetana, then Ludwig van Beethoven’s ‘Seventh Symphony’ and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s ‘Piano Concerto No. 2’.