The 48th edition of the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca has announced its 2022 season.

The season, which will be held between July 19th and August 6, 2022 in Martina Franca, will be the first program under new artistic director, Sebastian F. Schwarz.

The opening night of the season will be on July 19 in Martina Franca’s Palazzo Ducale. The work on hand will be “Delitto e castigo,” a dramma lirico by composer Arrigo Pedrollo from Vicenza with a libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. After its debut at La Scala in 1926, it was performed at La Fenice 1953. Jan Latham Koenig conducts, while David Pountney will direct.

The second opera of the season will be “Beatrice di Tenda” by Vincenzo Bellini. The opera is one of the least performed by the composer from Catania and will be presented in concert form. Festival’s music director Fabio Luisi conducts.

The Palazzo Ducale will see the world premiere of “Opera italiana” by Nicola Campogrande, a work written between 2008 and 2010 and commissioned by the Comitato Italia 150 (on the occasion of the celebrations for Italy’s national Unity 1861-2011) to depict contemporary Italy. Piero Bodrato wrote the libretto and Alessandro Cadario will conduct while Tommaso Franchin will direct.

The final opera of the season, which will be performed at Martina Franca’s Teatro Verdi, is “Il Xerse” by Francesco Cavalli. It will ne performed in its new critical edition by Sara Elisa Stangalino and Hendrik Schulze, for Bärenreiter. Federico Maria Sardelli conducts while Leo Muscato directs.

The complete program will be announced in a later moment.