Italy’s Donizetti Opera Festival Hires New Artistic Director 

Conductor Riccardo Frizza will assume his new position for the next three years

Italian conductor Riccardo Frizza will now take on the role of Artistic Director of the Donizetti Opera Festival, where he has served as Music Director since 2017. He will succeed Francesco Micheli, who was unavailable for a contract renewal.

Frizza was unanimously appointed by the board of directors of the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti chaired by Giorgio Berta and including Emilio Bellingardi, Enrico Fusi, Elisabetta Ricchiuti, Roberta Sestini, Giovanni Thiella, and Alessandro Valoti.

This news follows Frizza’s recent eight-city tour leading the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason throughout the UK including Birmingham Symphony Hall, Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, Perth Concert Hall, Middlesbrough Town Hall, the Bristol Beacon, Warwick Arts Centre, Sheffield City Hall, and London’s Cadogan Hall.

Earlier this fall, he conducted two new productions of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux at the Donizetti Festival and a new production of Massenet’s Werther at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna to critical and audience acclaim.

Frizza is a regular guest conductor at the Opéra de Paris, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Teatro alla Scala, Teatro Real, Rossini Opera Festival, Gran Teatre del Liceu, and many more. In 2022, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir. 

Among his achievements include the Ópera XXI Award for Best Musical Director, and being named the Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, by decree of the President of the Republic, for his merits towards the Nation in the field of art.

“[This] is an exceptional acknowledgement of the work I have been doing since 2017 as music director of the festival devoted to Donizetti, and I am deeply grateful to all the members of the board,” Frizza stated on his website. “Besides being a great honour, this double responsibility indicates a clear cut pathway to follow with the determined will to preserve the history and success of the festival, without losing sight of the origins of the historical, musical and cultural patrimony encapsulated in the towering, beloved, immortal name, Gaetano Donizetti,” he added. “Those who, like me, have known and been studying his scores for a lifetime, are aware that this authentic ‘reservoir of music’ must be transformed into artistic projects equal to the stature of such a treasure …

“I will soon unveil my project,” Frizza continued. “Now is the time to reflect on everything that Donizetti Opera has been during the first ten years of its existence, and on Francesco Micheli’s irrepressible contribution, which has left the bold mark of his creativity. And, immediately afterwards, it will be time to make great plans and take action so that new, exciting ideas can take shape. To do this, I am certain that I can count on the continued support of everyone who has accompanied me over the years in my work as music director.”