News

Between tradition and new visions: ORT presents its 46th season at the Teatro Verdi with another year of great symphonic music and special projects

The ORT’s return to grand opera theater with Puccini’s Turandot, in a new production marking the centennial at the Teatro del Giglio in Lucca

The Orchestra della Toscana returns to the opera stage with a production that leaves no room for timidity: 𝘛𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘵 by Giacomo Puccini.

On Saturday, April 25, 2026, and Sunday, April 26, at the Teatro del Giglio in Lucca, the ORT takes center stage in the Centennial Edition with a new production directed by Nadir Dal Grande. Dal Grande is responsible for the direction, sets, and costumes. Alessandro D’Agostini conducts.

A significant return to the theatrical dimension of opera, featuring a first-rate cast. Among the performers: Oksana Dyka(Turandot), Roberto Aronica (Calaf), George Andguladze (Timur), and Maria Novella Malfatti (Liù).

With timeless arias and a world suspended between fairy tale and drama, Turandot brings all the power of great musical theater back to the stage. In doing so, it transforms the Teatro del Giglio into a space of intense evocative power.

A new production by the Teatro del Giglio Giacomo Puccini, in co-production with the Teatri di OperaLombardia and the Teatro Coccia di Novara.

With Turandot, a masterpiece suspended between fairy tale and drama, the ORT reaffirms its presence in the great operatic repertoire. Furthermore, it participates in a nationwide project born from the collaboration between major Italian theaters.

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From international competitions to the concert stage, Min Gyu Song and Simon Zhu, two rising stars, face their greatest challenge – time – alongside the Orchestra della Toscana in a programme dedicated to Mozart: an account by artistic director Daniele Spini

Major international competitions serve to launch new talent. You don’t need to have won a competition to be a great conductor or a great soloist; sometimes, winning one isn’t enough.

It is the subsequent development of a career that tells us whether a particular competition was a success or whether the jury got it wrong. The Orchestra della Toscana, always on the lookout for new names, pays close attention to what happens in the major competitions. This is particularly true of those held in Italy. And in this case, it brings together two young musicians who, thanks to their resounding victories, are making a name for themselves in the concert world.

We often invite winners and finalists of the Cantelli Prize in Novara to conduct. Meanwhile, whilst entries for the 2026 edition are already open, we are hosting the Korean conductor Min Gyu Song. In 2024, he won both the first prize and the prizes awarded by the Management and Agencies Jury and the Milan Symphony Orchestra.

Other new friends have come to us from the Paganini Competition in Genoa: Simon Zhu, from Germany, won it in 2023. We immediately invited him to perform at an important concert, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

Since then, he has embarked on an intense journey, full of brilliant achievements, and now returns to enrich our season in Florence and Tuscany.

The programme is classic, as classic as it gets: the last and most beloved of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s five violin concertos, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s final and most light-hearted purely instrumental symphony. The Eighth seems to leap back ten years through a period of revolutionary innovation to pay homage, part in jest and part in nostalgia, to the lost paradise of a youth long since ended.

Unicoop Firenze and ORT: collaboration begins on cultural project for under-30s

Unicoop Firenze and the Fondazione ORT are launching a collaboration as part of the Under 30 – Accendi la cultura project, an initiative that brings young people aged between 18 and 30 closer to the main cultural events in the region through free or discounted events. The project is designed to promote direct and informed access to culture, making it part of the everyday experience of the younger generation.

The first event in this shared journey is the Diego Ceretta and Kevin Spagnolo concert, hosted at the Teatro Verdi on Tuesday, February 24, at 9:00 p.m. and offered free of charge to those under 30 who are registered on the platform. This is a concrete opportunity to get closer to live symphonic music and get to know its performers up close.

To discover all the opportunities, visit the website: coopfi.info/under30

Under 30 Project

The “Under 30 – accendi la cultura” (Under 30 – ignite culture) project is conceived and promoted by Unicoop Firenze and is aimed at young people between the ages of 18 and 30 (not yet reached), offering them free or discounted cultural opportunities in theaters, cinemas, museums, dedicated events, special evenings, and concerts in Tuscany.

How it works

The initiatives are open to all under-30s, whether or not they are Unicoop Firenze members. To participate in the events on the calendar, you must book the event on the online platform dedicated to the project and then show your booking at the ticket office to collect your free or discounted tickets.

The numbers behind the success

Since its launch in 2023, the project has been very well received and attracted large numbers of participants: in just over two years, the Under 30 events have registered 27,300 participants on the platform for a total of 347 shows and events promoted throughout Tuscany. Among the most popular events were the open rehearsals of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale, the events organized with the Accademia della Crusca, the Lucca Comics Festival, the Teatri di Pistoia, again with the open rehearsal formula, Palazzo Blu in Pisa with evenings dedicated to young people, and Palazzo Strozzi, which in 2025 welcomed 700 young people to its “Strozzi night” evenings.

Presentation at the Teatro Verdi in Florence of the book Angiola Maria Pagliano, “grand dame” in Florence between the 19th and 20th centuries, portrait of a cultured and independent figure of the Florentine Belle Époque, niece of Girolamo Pagliano and protagonist of a famous cultural salon.

On Friday, October 24, at 5:30 p.m., in the foyer of the Teatro Verdi in Florence (Via Ghibellina 99), there will be a presentation of the book Angiola Maria Pagliano, “gran dama” a Firenze fra Otto e Novecento (Angiola Maria Pagliano, “grand dame” in Florence between the 19th and 20th centuries), edited by Carlo Steidl. Created on the initiative of her great-grandchildren, the book brings back to memory a female figure of great charisma and modernity. Angiola was a leading figure of the Florentine Belle Époque and the granddaughter of Girolamo Pagliano, founder and director of the theater that today bears the name of Verdi.

Left alone, she turned her home into a cultural salon frequented by artists, intellectuals, and politicians of the time. From Trentacoste to Romanelli, from Finocchiaro-Aprile to Clemente Origo and Maksim Gorkij, they all frequented the salon. A precious Salon Album with dedications and sketches remains from that experience. Carlo Steidl has reconstructed the stories and protagonists of this album.

A large portrait of Angiola Maria, painted by Edoardo Gelli, is now kept at the Museo del Costume in Palazzo Pitti.

The celebration will be followed by a private concert inspired by the music of the theater’s inauguration. It will take place in Palazzo Galli Tassi in Via Pandolfini, once the headquarters of Girolamo Pagliano’s company and his descendants.

An event that combines memory, art, and music, bringing to light a woman who knew how to be a protagonist of her time.

The Orchestra della Toscana inaugurates the 103rd Micat in Vertice season at the Chigiana. On 22 November, in Siena Cathedral, a tribute to Arvo Pärt for his 90th birthday.

The Orchestra della Toscana will inaugurate the 103rd Micat in Vertice Season of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana on Saturday, 22 November 2025, in the Cathedral of Siena. This occurs on the feast day of Saint Cecilia.

The inaugural concert is organised in collaboration with the Opera della Metropolitana di Siena. It is under the patronage of the Estonian Embassy in Italy. The concert is dedicated to Arvo Pärt, one of the greatest living composers, on the occasion of his 90th birthday. The ORT will be conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste, who is a leading interpreter of Pärt’s music. They will perform together with the Siena Cathedral Choir “Guido Chigi Saracini” and its soloists.

The event inaugurates a season that includes sixteen concerts, from 22 November 2025 to 8 May 2026. The programme ranges from early music to contemporary sounds and welcomes great performers from the international scene. These include Ian Bostridge, Francesco Piemontesi, Jean Rondeau, the Quatuor Modigliani, the Danish String Quartetand Peppe Servillo.

The participation of the Orchestra della Toscana in the inauguration confirms its solid collaboration with the Accademia Chigiana. It also underlines the ensemble’s ongoing commitment to promoting great symphonic and choral repertoires in the most symbolic venues of Italy’s artistic heritage.

For further information on the season and concerts, visit the Accademia Chigiana website.

On September 27th, Palazzo Strozzi inaugurated the largest retrospective ever organized in Italy dedicated to Helen Frankenthaler, one of the most revolutionary artists of the 20th century. The exhibition will be open until January 26th, 2025, and a special promotion is available for our audience.

Palazzo Strozzi presents the most comprehensive retrospective ever held in Italy dedicated to one of the most revolutionary artists of the 20th century. The exhibition offers an in-depth overview of Helen Frankenthaler’s work, placing her creations in dialogue with those of contemporary artists such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Morris Louis, David Smith, Anthony Caro, and Anne Truitt.

The exhibition takes visitors on a journey through large-scale paintings, works on paper, and sculptures, creating a path that highlights the artist’s extraordinary originality. It includes loans from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation and prestigious international museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Tate Modern in London, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) played a pivotal role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field painting, challenging conventions and pushing the boundaries of art in search of new expressive freedom. Famous for her innovative soak-stain technique, Frankenthaler applied diluted paint to unprimed canvases, creating watercolor-like effects on a large scale. This approach allowed her to explore new relationships between color, space, and form, uniquely expanding the possibilities of abstract painting and inspiring new generations of artists to this day.

Once again, the collaboration between Fondazione ORT and Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi is renewed. Our subscribers—or the attendees of our concerts—will be able to access the exhibition at a reduced ticket price upon presenting their concert ticket. Similarly, those who purchase a ticket for the exhibition will be eligible for a discounted entry to any of our season concerts.

New challenges and undertakings for the ORT

Increasingly in demand on an international level, Daniele Rustioni has taken the responsible decision to step aside. Daniele Spini is appointed new artistic director by the foundation’s board of directors.

An important appointment for the general director of the ORT

Parri’s new position was made official at the AGIS headquarters today in Rome. One of his first commitments will be to develop “an ongoing and productive relationship between the various components of the performing arts sector, while ensuring direct contact with the institutions and the new executive.”