The 79th edition of the Sagra Musicale Umbra, the oldest festival in the Umbria Region, will take place from 6 to 20 September 2024 in Perugia, Deruta, Montefalco, San Gemini, Scheggino and Todi.
"But luckily it is a moonlit night..." is the inspirational claim of this edition's programme, at the centre of which revolves Giacomo Puccini's ambitious Bohème in the original Operacorto formula, a format devised by tenor Gianluca Terranova, who will collaborate in the formation of two young casts and oversee the direction.
A pocket-opera, enriched by Giacomo Cossio's scenography, with which the Sagra honours the centenary of the death of the great composer from Lucca and returns after many years to musical theatre, which will make its debut on Friday 13 September at the Teatro Morlacchi in Perugia and will be repeated on Tuesday 17 September at the Teatro Comunale in Todi, with the Perugia Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Enrico Bronzi, and two young and talented casts.
The double date will be preceded by introductory seminars that will contribute to making this masterpiece also an instrument of popularisation.
The programme includes the inaugural concert on Friday evening, 6 September, with the Choir and Orchestra Cremona Musica Antiqua, conducted by Antonio Greco, in the Basilica of San Pietro, Perugia, in a sacred project dedicated to the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Giovanni Gabrieli.
It will continue on Saturday, 7 September at the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, in Perugia, with the mystical rite of Sama, in which the rotating dervishes of the Konya Sufi Music Ensemble materialise ecstasy in the dance-prayer to the sound of Sufi music, and on Saturday, 14 September, at the Sala dei Notari, in Perugia, with a journey through traditional Cretan music.
On Sunday, 8 September, it will be Deruta's turn to honour Deruta's most important musician and theorist, Girolamo Diruta, author of the Transylvanian.
In addition, there will be two concerts of the Musica con Vista festival, on Tuesday 10 September in Scheggino and on Thursday 12 September in Perugia's Villa Valvitiano.
There will also be musical and cultural moments at the University for Foreigners of Perugia, including the already mentioned conference on the Bohème, the meeting with the journalist and art historian Marco Carminati and the one with Marco Tortoioli Ricci, professor at the Perugia Academy of Fine Arts.
For further information and the complete programme:
website: Perugiamusicaclassica