Conductor Riccardo Frizza has been named the first and new music director of the Donizetti Opera Festival in Bergamo.

The festival is the only one dedicated to the research and dissemination of the Bergamo born composer´s wide repertoire, a cornerstone of the Romantic bel-canto style.

The new appointment was announced by Bergamo´s councillor for culture, Nadia Ghisalberti, and by the director of the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti, Massimo Boffelli, the artistic director of the Fondazione Donizetti, Francesco Micheli, and the research director, Paolo Fabbri.

Frizza’s responsibilities will be drawn up when the 2018 Festival programme, in which Frizza will conduct, is revealed.

The conductor has been a major proponent of Donizetti’s music, taking on a number of his rare operas in addition to his most renowned works.

The conductor has a full slate for 2017-18 and will be leading performances of Verdi’s “Falstaff” at the Teatro Regio in Parma, “La Traviata” in the New National Theater in Tokyo, “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” at the Opéra National de Paris, “Norma” at the Orchard Hall in Bunkamura, Japan, “Luisa Miller” at the Zürich Opera House, “L’Elisir d’Amore,” and “Norma” at La Fenice in Venice, “Semiramide” at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and “Il Pirata” at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.