The Donizetti Opera Festival has announced that the 2024 edition will be the final one for Artistic Director Francesco Micheli.

Micheli, who began with the festival in 2015, will oversee the 2024 edition which will be held from Nov. 14 to Dec. 1, 2024.

In a statement, Micheli said, “I proudly greet my city and the Donizetti Theater knowing that I am leaving a legacy of a Festival that in fifteen years has become an international point of reference. Four “Abbiati Awards” from the National Association of Music Critics, Best European Festival in 2019 according to German critics for the monthly “Oper!” and many other satisfactions that I have experienced with many of you. Thanks to our work, today Gaetano lives and fights with us from Bergamo in the world.”

The president of the Donizetti Theater Foundation Giorgio Berta added, “To accompany a ‘revolution’ like the one we have seen in these ten years, a solid organizational structure was needed, which has grown over the years, like that of the Donizetti Theater Foundation, which I have chaired since 2016. The challenges that Francesco Micheli has posed to us in recent years, as well as those of the restructuring and the pandemic, have been notable. However, we faced them, respecting times and costs both in the happiest moments of the show, such as the rediscovery of the ‘Ange de Nisida,’ and when we had to face moments of uncertainty and health and social emergencies. Years in which we did not give up, but invented or identified new tools and new methods of engaging the public, such as WebTV in 2020 with 11 thousand viewers. The Donizetti Opera, in the vision of Francesco Micheli and in the growing commitment of all the Foundation’s workers, has managed to make all the people of Bergamo understand, starting with the children, the value of Donizetti as a composer and the universal message of his theatre.”

The company also announced that over the next two years, the festival will present a co-production of “Caterina Cornaro” with the Teatro Real in Madrid directed by Micheli and David McVicar’s “Maria Stuarda.”

This season the festival will present Roberto Devereux, Zoraida di Granata, and Don Pasquale.