Mozart in Verona 2022: a week of live events from January 5th to 11th
Verona’s tribute to the genius of Mozart goes live again: from January 5th to 11th, a week of live initiatives on the 252nd anniversary of the composer’s visit to the city
Mozart returns to Verona: from January 5th to 11th 2022, we are celebrating the Salzburg genius, 252 years after his visit to the city.
The initiative, now at its third consecutive year, is the result of collaboration between the Municipality of Verona, Fondazione Cariverona, the Accademia Filarmonica di Verona and Fondazione Arena. A week of live events open to the public, in the historic locations of the city in which the composer performed at a very young age.
In the 18th century, Italy was the main destination of the Grand Tour: young artistes from all over Europe embarked on a long journey to come into direct contact with Italy’s immense historic, artistic and cultural heritage. On this fundamental journey, Verona could not be missed. A young Mozart arrived with his father Leopold on December 27th 1769 and met the city’s cultural élite: the climax of the visit was a performance by the composer, not yet fourteen years of age, in the Sala Maffeiana, as a guest of Verona’s Accademia Filarmonica (Europe’s oldest music academy). This was on January 5th 1770.
On Wednesday January 5th 2022, at 8:30 pm, the traditional concert in memory of that fist performance will again be held: pianist Elia Cecino (born 2001), a promising young artiste on the international music scenario, will perform in that same Sala Maffeiana that hosted Mozart. Inspired by the style of the composer’s classically beautiful musicality, he will lead the audience through the evolution of piano repertoire to early Romanticism’s most refined virtuosity.
Two Mozart masterpieces will open the evening, the Sonata in C major K. 330 and the Fantasia in D minor K. 397, heard less frequently, which will be followed by the Variations sérieuses Op. 54 by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, perhaps the most "classic" of the romantics.
The second part of the concert on the other hand will be dedicated to Fryderyk Chopin, the composer who, in people’s imagination, more than any other embodied the prototype of the romantic musician, with the Four mazurkas Op. 24, the Two nocturnes Op. 32 and the Polonaise in F sharp minor Op. 44. Admittance (as long as seats are available) to the concert is free, and a Green Pass rafforzato (reinforced Green Pass) is compulsory for all spectators.
Friday January 7th at 8:30 pm, the Church of S. Tomaso Cantuariense will host the eagerly awaited appointment with music organized by Fondazione Cariverona to celebrate Mozart’s historic performance on January 7th 1770. The protagonist will be La Divina Armonia, the Italian ensemble specialized in Baroque and 18th century repertoire with international collaborations and recordings to its credit.
Musicians Stefano Barneschi, Anna Maddalena Ghielmi (violins), Vanni Moretto (double bass) and Lorenzo Ghielmi (organ and musical direction) will perform a program entitled Mozart in Italy, dedicated to the interplay and cross-fertilization of Mozart’s sacred music and his period: sonatas and concerts for organ by Sammartini, Haydn, Fioroni, Padre Martini and, obviously, by the Salzburg composer himself (Church sonatas K.224, K.241, K.328 and the very rare Andante for organ K.616).
On Sunday January 9th at 3:30 pm, Fondazione Arena di Verona proposes a monographic afternoon dedicated to Chamber Mozart, extremely refined but rarely performed music, with some members of the Fondazione Arena Orchestra: Sofia Gelsomini (violin), Massimiliano Di Stefano (viola), Massimiliano Martinelli (cello), Pier Filippo Barbano (flute), Francesca Rodomonti and Francesco Scandolari (oboes), Paolo Guelfi and Domenico Faccin (bassoons), Andrea Leasi and Domenico Guglielmello (horns).
The concert will be held at the Teatro Filarmonico and feature compositions written for various formations between 1775 and 1781 by a young Mozart: two Divertimentos for wind instruments K.213 and K.270, Quartets for strings and oboe K.370 and for strings and flute K.285 and the first Prelude and fugue for string trio from K.404a, Mozart’s arrangement of music by Bach.
On this occasion, tickets for all the seats in the Theatre will be on sale at a special price of €10 online on the web site arena.it, at the main Ticket Office and, from two hours before the show, also at the Ticket Office in Via Mutilati.
The Mozart in Verona 2022 initiatives will end on Tuesday January 11th at 5:30 pm in the Conference Hall of Palazzo della Gran Guardia: Giorgio Fossaluzza, art historian and lecturer at Verona University, and Michele Magnabosco, librarian and curator of the Accademia Filarmonica di Verona, will hold a conference dedicated to The young Mozart in Verona and his portrait painted from life at the harpsichord.
An ultra-high definition reproduction of the famous painting, showing the thirteen year-old composer during his stay in Italy - realized by publisher Franco Cosimo Panini’s specialist tech company Haltadefinizione and by the restoration workshop B. Restauro of Reggio Emilia - will be exhibited during the meeting, to which admittance is free.
For admission to each initiative, it is necessary by law to show a Green pass rafforzato (“reinforced Green Pass”) and wear a face mask for the entire duration of the event. For further info: Fondazione Cariverona web site, arena.it and social channels.
