Giuseppe Pennisi

Giuseppe Pennisi (born in Rome on 24 January 1942) was an opera buff from the age of twelve. A free-thinking man who was open to the world, he pursued two parallel careers: as an economist and as a music reviewer.

As an economist, he worked in the USA for the World Bank for eighteen years until the mid-1980s, and for UN agencies (FAO and ILO) for seven years. He held senior positions in Italian public service - a general manager at the Ministries of Budget and Labor - and in academia - professor of economics at the Bologna Center of John Hopkins University and at the National School of Administration, whose economic program he coordinated from 1995 until 2009. His bank colleagues recall that he planned his missions in line with the lyric season, and he had to organize his lecturing according to the schedules of major Italian opera houses and European summer festivals such as Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg.

Giuseppe Pennisi (1942-2023) in Salzburg on 23 August 2017
Giuseppe Pennisi (1942-2023)
in Salzburg on 23 August 2017

 

He published some twenty books on economics and finance in Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA, and was a board member of various institutions. He was vice-president of the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto, and was often called to serve on the panel for the yearly opera awards.

He was music critic for the weekly Liberal from 1996 until 2001 and the weekly Il Domenicale from 2001 until 2011, as well as for the Class Group newspapers and periodicals from 2000 to 2015, the monthly Musica titles Opera Today from 2007 to 2010, as well as for Il Sussidiario, Formiche, Art Tribune, the monthly Classica and the quarterly Nuova Antologia.

From December 2009 until March 2023 he wrote extensively about opera, classical music and contemporary classical music for this online magazine, and took part in most of our interactive video newsletters during 2021 and 2022, reporting on the situation in Rome during the pandemic.

Giuseppe Pennisi in conversation with Victoria Bond in May 2022 at the beginning of our June 2022 video newsletter
Giuseppe Pennisi in conversation with Victoria Bond in May 2022 at the beginning of our June 2022 video newsletter

 

Giuseppe Pennisi died in Rome on the morning of 8 April 2023, aged eighty-one, following a long illness.

 

Articles by Giuseppe Pennisi

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to two British composers - Thomas Adès and Gustav Holst - in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi witnesses great success for Franco Zeffirelli's return to Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi examines the Passacaglia and listens to a new Erato disc

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Urania Records' new Caruso tribute album

Myung-whun Chung conducts Brahms symphonies

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a special performance in Rome of Verdi's Requiem

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Ferruccio Busoni's opera

Italian pianist Mariangela Vacatello plays Scriabin from memory

Giuseppe Pennisi was in the audience for 'Aida'

Nineteenth century chamber music in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to the complete string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich

Giuseppe Pennisi is impressed by a concert given by the orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from a performance of Vivaldi's pastiche 'Tamerlano'

Giuseppe Pennisi is back in his usual seat at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma for Donizetti's melodramma giocoso

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Florence for a performance of Verdi's most complex and monumental opera

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences some rare music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Giuseppe Pennisi recommends a visit to the ballet

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Gloria Campaner

Giuseppe Pennisi is impressed by the HD transmission from Milan of Modest Musorgsky's opera

Giuseppe Pennisi is treated to a Chopin recital in Rome by Leonora Armellini

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Rome on Francis Poulenc's 'Dialogues des Carmélites'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Verdi's 'Gustavo III' ('Un ballo in maschera')

Giuseppe Pennisi reports via live stream on the Ravenna Festival Mozart/Da Ponte Trilogy

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Adolphe Adam's 'Giselle' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Giuseppe Pennisi writes about a recent performance of 'Don Giovanni' in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a very special 'Alceste' which effectively closes the opera season of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Puccini's 'La bohème' from Irish National Opera

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Donizetti

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Salvatore Sciarrino

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from the final concert of a Schubert festival in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on two contemporary ballets at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Giuseppe Pennisi returns for the last weekend of the Chigiana International Festival and Music Academy

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to the Matangi Quartet

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Malipiero

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences an excellent 'Otello' at the Rossini Opera Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on the Rossini Opera Festival's second production of 'La gazzetta'

The Rossini Opera Festival begins with a new production of 'Le Comte Ory'

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of a new production of Rossini's 'Il barbiere di Siviglia'

Giuseppe Pennisi finds Joseph Summer's 'Hamlet' a musical hodgepodge

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on the International Chigiana Festival and Summer Academy

Giuseppe Pennisi was in the audience for Leonard Bernstein's 'Mass'

Giuseppe Pennisi describes how American music is back, alive and well at the Spoleto Festival

Daniel Harding concludes the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia's 2021-22 symphonic season in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to sixteenth and seventeenth century Polish Baroque music

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from 'The Italian Salzburg'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to solo violin sonatas by Eugène Ysaÿe, played by Anca Vasile Caraman

Giuseppe Pennisi was in the audience for Verdi's 'Ernani', back in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to two symphonies in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Warner Classics' box set

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Mozart, played by the Canova Chamber Orchestra

Giuseppe Pennisi enjoys the ballet 'Il Corsaro'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Maurice Ravel played by Neapolitan pianist Roberto Cominati

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Quartetto Prometeo in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to orchestral music in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi was in the audience, in Rome, for Bellini's last great masterpiece

Margherita Porfido plays music from the south of Italy

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from the first Italian performance of 'The Passion according to St Mark' by contemporary Polish composer Paweł Mykietyn

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's 'La bohème'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Giacinto Scelsi

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Francesco Meli

Giuseppe Pennisi attended one and saw the other on TV

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Saint-Saëns' 'Phryné'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Johann Simon Mayr's 'Elena'

Attilio Ariosti's 'La Profezia d'Eliseo'

Giuseppe Pennisi was in the audience for 'Herman Schmerman', 'Walking Mad' and 'From Afar', to music by Thom Willems, Maurice Ravel, Arvo Pärt and Ezio Bosso

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Raffaele Pé

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to vocal music by Gesualdo and some of his contemporaries

Verdi's 'Luisa Miller'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to 'Enea in Caonia' by Hasse

Music by Arnold Schoenberg, Sylvano Bussotti and Giacomo Puccini

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Franz Liszt for piano and orchestra

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Alessandro Perini

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences a Janáček first performance in Italy's capital

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Giuseppe Carpani's Italian language version of Haydn's oratorio

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Hans Werner Henze's 'Das verratene Meer'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to ballet music in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Janáček, played by the New Zealand String Quartet

Giuliano Peparini's staging of Tchaikovsky ballet and his grandson

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to cellist Zlatomir Fung and pianist Richard Fu

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Arvo Pärt

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to the Tallis Scholars in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Florence for a new production of Verdi's comic opera

The first performance of 'Julius Caesar' by Giorgio Battistelli

Giuseppe Pennisi explores a box set from Opus Arte

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences 'Koyaanisqatsi', by Philip Glass, in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Rome's Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti

The first performance of 'L'ultima estate - Memorie di un mondo che non c'è più' by Marcello Filotei

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Giuseppe Gipponi, Lorenzo Viotti and the Santa Cecilia Symphony Orchestra

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a special anniversary season of the Accademia Filarmonica Romana

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Xiaoyong Chen

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to 'La fille de Madame Angot' by Charles Lecocq

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews Rome's first performance of Verdi's 'Giovanna D'Arco' since 1972

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to piano music by Musorgsky and Scriabin played by Michele Campanella

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews a concert in Rome dealing with contrasted passions of love

Giuseppe Pennisi was at one of the opening concerts of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia's new season

Giuseppe Pennisi was at a performance in Rome of the Italian version of Gian Carlo Menotti's 'The Medium'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Enrico Saverio Pagano and Orchestra Canova

'La Princesse Jaune'

Giuseppe Pennisi is impressed by Roland Petit's two act ballet 'Notre Dame de Paris'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to the opera 'Risurrezione' by Franco Alfano

Georg Philipp Telemann's Easter Cantatas

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to a Steve Reich anthology

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences two unusual performances in Syracuse, Sicily

Giuseppe Pennisi discusses recent performances of 'Il Signor Bruschino' and 'Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra'

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews 'Moïse et Pharaon'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to piano music by twentieth century Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Stradella

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews 'La bohème' in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi returns to the Chigiana Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to two concerts on the same evening in Italy's capital city

Giuseppe Pennisi was in the audience in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music for orchestra and electronics by Nicola Sani

Giuseppe Pennisi attends the Stravinsky anniversary celebrations in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Chigiana International Festival and Summer Academy

Giuseppe Pennisi attends the final two concerts of the Musica d'Amare Festival in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Spoleto Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi recommends listening to but not watching Maggio Musicale Fiorentino's production of Verdi's 'La forza del destino'

Giuseppe Pennisi previews the 2021 edition of the Aix-en-Provence Festival

Verdi's 'Il trovatore' from Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

The music of English composer Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji from an Italian perspective

Giuseppe Pennisi samples Northern Italy's high profile and wide-ranging arts festival

Music by Lukas Ligeti

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Wagner and Shostakovich in a triumphant concert by Alejo Pérez and the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma Orchestra

Oksana Lyniv makes her Rome debut

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to the first complete recording of Reynaldo Hahn's 'Ô mon bel inconnu'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on an Accademia Filarmonica Romana concert in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi enjoys a streamed/televised production of Verdi's 'Luisa Miller' from Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Richard Wagner's 'Parsifal', streamed from Vienna State Opera

Giuseppe Pennisi was in a box for the opening night

Gaetano Donizetti's 'The Elixir of Love'

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences a new Italian production of Debussy's opera via TV

Giuseppe Pennisi explores a new critical edition of Palestrina's 'Missa Papae Marcelli'

Giuseppe Pennisi explores a CD set marking the Orfeo International label's first forty years

Giuseppe Pennisi takes a critical look at two April 2021 performances of Verdi's 'La Traviata'

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences two recent performances broadcast on Italian TV

Georg Philipp Telemann's Markus-Passion 1759

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a Weill/Brecht double bill from La Scala Milan

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews Riccardo Muti's 'Così fan tutte' at Teatro Regio di Torino

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's Homage to Stravinsky

Giuseppe Pennisi is not entirely convinced by Teatro San Carlo di Napoli's new production of Gioacchino Rossini's 'Il Turco in Italia'

Teatro Comunale di Bologna's new production of Cilea's 'Adriana Lecouvreur'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to two sets of English folk and other songs

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a production modified for TV and streaming

Elena Stikhina in Teatro alla Scala's new production of 'Salome' by Richard Strauss

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews the new Opéra de Paris production of 'Aida'

HD streaming of the opening night at the new Staatsoper Unter den Linden production in Berlin of Janáček's 'Jenůfa'

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews Vincenzo Bellini's rarely-staged 'Il Pirata'

Giuseppe Pennisi investigates various current and recent opera productions

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews Puccini, broadcast from Teatro Regio Torino in Italy

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences a pastiche for our times at the opening of Teatro Massimo di Palermo's 2021 season

Bellini's 'I Puritani' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Giuseppe Pennisi writes about the seventeenth century Italian architect and global musician Carlo Rainaldi

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews rarely-heard François Couperin orchestral transcriptions by Richard Strauss

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews Michele Mariotti's January 2021 Beethoven performance in Parma

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony

Music by French baroque composer Michel-Richard de Lalande

Giuseppe Pennisi looks forward to the Salzburg Summer Festival which has Peace as its theme

Meyerbeer's little-known opera 'Romilda e Costanza'

Giuseppe Pennisi makes his festive choice from the Italian media

Giuseppe Pennisi writes about Christmas in music for children in Italy

An unusual opening to La Scala's season in Milan

A new Rome production of Rossini's 'Barber of Seville' especially for TV

Works by Francesco Pennisi, Goffredo Petrassi and Marcello Panni

Giuseppe Pennisi watches a new Florence production of Verdi's 'Otello' on Italian TV

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on 'Il barbiere di Siviglia' and the Rossini Opera Festival's current performances

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences three operas from the 2020 Donizetti Opera Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi enjoys streamed performances of a Carmen double bill in Rome

Michele Campanella's recording of Liszt's 'Années de pèlerinage'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to a Naxos boxed set of Monteverdi madrigals

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Verdi's opera in Rieti

Giuseppe Pennisi compares two recent recordings of Górecki string quartets

The first recording of Reynaldo Hahn's opera 'L'île du rêve'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to the seventeenth century 'L'Empio Punito' by Alessandro Melani

Giuseppe Pennisi writes about the current music scene in Italy, touching on recent notable performances

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to 'Phèdre' - a rare opera by Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Opera Roma's grand performance of Petite Messe Solennelle in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to harpsichord music by François Couperin

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Johann Simon Mayr's 1814 opera 'Le due duchesse'

Giuseppe Pennisi drops in to the ArtScience Festival and the Roman Philharmonic Academy's Garden Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Saint-Saëns' opéra fantastique 'Le timbre d'argent'

George Frideric Handel's 'Rinaldo' in Florence

Cuarteto Casals plays a selection of Beethoven string quartets

Giuseppe Pennisi discovers the eighteenth century Neapolitan composer Girolamo Rossi

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Schubert, Wagner and Mozart from Daniele Gatti and the Mozart Orchestra at the Ravello Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi discovers Nicola Bonifacio Logroscino's Stabat Mater at the Ravello Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi is impressed by Joanne Chang's piano recital featuring music by Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, Ernesto Lecuona and May Aufderheide

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to two recent orchestral works by British composer Philip Sawyers

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Spoleto to experience the first performance of a new work by Silvia Colasanti

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Ravel, James Francis Brown and Liana Alexandra, performed by Andrea Oliva and the Hemisphaeria Trio

Giuseppe Pennisi sends his last report from this year's Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro

Giuseppe Pennisi attends a very special performance at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro

Giuseppe Pennisi relates how 'Die lustige Witwe' is enthralling Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Beethoven from Rome's Parco della Musica

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's Circus Maximus

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to violin and piano music by the Russian master

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the re-opening of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma for Verdi's 'Rigoletto'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from the last of the Accademia Filarmonica Romana's summer concerts

Giuseppe Pennisi attends the opening performance of the completely re-designed Chigiana International Festival and Summer Academy

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from a modified Ravenna Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi describes what looks like being a busy musical summer in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to a new recording of Verdi's 'Otello'

Giuseppe Pennisi looks at the detail of the replanned 2020 Salzburg Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Gershwin, Copland and Bernstein

Simon Rattle conducts Wagner's 'Die Walküre'

Giuseppe Pennisi enjoys a recital by Karina Gauvin

Giuseppe Pennisi investigates the fast-evolving festival scene

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on the gradual reopening of Italian Summer Festivals

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews a four CD set of music by the Austrian-born composer

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music from Sharon Isbin and the Pacifica Quartet

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to chamber music by Paul Hindemith

Giuseppe Pennisi puts the case for Italy

In this year of celebration, Giuseppe Pennisi muses on Ludwig van Beethoven's modernity

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to a recording by Marina Rebeka

Giuseppe Pennisi describes his life as an economist in the world of music

Giuseppe Pennisi wonders whether the 2020 Salzburg Summer Festival will take place

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Busoni's 'Turandot' and 'Arlecchino'

The story of Dido, Queen of Carthage, as seen by eight Baroque composers

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Offenbach's 'Maître Péronilla'

More Beethoven string quartets in Rome

Tchaikovsky's 'Eugene Onegin' returns to Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Les Arts Florissants

Giuseppe Pennisi attends two concerts marking this year's Beethoven anniversary

A performance of 'Hyperion' in Rome celebrates Bruno Maderna's centenary, and Giuseppe Pennisi is in the audience

Richard Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde' in Bologna pleases Giuseppe Pennisi

Giuseppe Pennisi is puzzled by a political and contemporary reading of 'Parsifal'

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences Bellini's rare opera 'I Capuleti e i Montecchi'

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences Franco Alfano's rarely performed opera 'Risurrezione' in Florence

Haydn's 'The Creation' in Rome

Tchaikovsky's 'Swan Lake' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Giuseppe Pennisi celebrates Christmas with Ezio Bosso and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to a CD box set from Palazzetto Bru Zane in Venice

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Tchaikovsky's 'Pique Dame' in Naples

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews Verdi's 'Les Vêpres Siciliennes' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Christophe Rousset's new recording from Bru Zane

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences Puccini's 'Tosca', live in HD at the inauguration of La Scala's 2019-20 opera and ballet season

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Verdi in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences three new operas in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews the new production of Puccini's 'Trittico' in Florence

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews Mozart's 'Idomeneo' in Rome

'Norma', 'Aida' and 'Carmen' in Ravenna

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to a pre-tour concert by Martha Argerich and Antonio Pappano, with the Symphony Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Lorenzo Tozzi's Romabarocca Ensemble. '... a precious CD from which to learn little known aspects of baroque music ...'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Rome on Rossini's first staged opera, asking who pays 'The Promissory Change'?

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Rome's Opera House on the Ludwig Minkus ballet

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Gaspare Spontini's 'Fernand Cortez ou La Conquête du Mexique'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Berlioz's 'Grande Messe des morts'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Ludovico Einaudi's opera 'Winter Journey'

Giuseppe Pennisi writes about a performance of 'L'empio punito' by Alessandro Melani

Giuseppe Pennisi has some advice for Graham Vick, based on the latter's latest production of 'Don Giovanni'

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews a special concert

Giuseppe Pennisi attends a gala evening in Rome dedicated to two experimental works

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a world tour by Diana Damrau and Xavier de Maistre

Giuseppe Pennisi is impressed by Enkeleda Kamani as Gilda in Verdi's 'Rigoletto' at La Scala, Milan

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Offenbach's 'Orpheus in the Underworld' at the Salzburg Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on one of Verdi's 'cursed' operas at the Salzburg Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi sends his first report from the 2019 Salzburg Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi sends his final report from Pesaro

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Pesaro on 'Demetrio e Polibio'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a new production of 'Semiramide' at the Rossini Opera Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi attends 'Sarang è Amore' at the Korean Cultural Institute in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi looks forward to the Rossini Opera Festival, 11-23 August 2019, and explains why investing in Rossini can be profitable

Giuseppe Pennisi steps up to Caetani Castle to listen to madrigals by Gesualdo

Giuseppe Pennisi attends three Tokyo Ballet performances in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi attends a cello and piano recital unexpectedly

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to selections of music by Alessandro Scarlatti, Bernado Pasquini and George Frideric Handel

Music by Michele Dall'Ongaro and Verdi in a chamber music format

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening concert of the 2019 Chigiana International Festival

Denis Krief's new production in Rome

An opera by Italian composer Silvia Colasanti

Giuseppe Pennisi considers Puccini's opera as a real orchestral masterpiece

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to an all-Beethoven programme from Gustavo Dudamel and the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences the revival in Rome of Rossini's 'La Cenerentola'

Giuseppe Pennisi samples Italy's 2019 Ravenna Summer Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on an Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia performance in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi describes the Fiery Angel that hangs over Rome

Bellini's 'La Straniera' at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews a revival of Wagner's 'Die Walküre' in Naples

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on the last 2018-19 subscription concert of Rome's Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti, given by Giuliano Carmagnola and Concerto Köln

Giuseppe Pennisi is impressed by Handel's 'Semele' from John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi ensembles

'Snow White' danced to music by Gustav Mahler

The new production of 'Ariadne auf Naxos' at La Scala Milan

Ton Koopman conducts the Mass in C and the Jupiter Symphony

Damiano Michieletto's joint venture with La Fenice is not a success in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Ivan Fidele, Taneyev, Scriabin and Stravinsky

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to interweaved movements from Beethoven and Ligeti, played by Herbert Schuch

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a special concert in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to a new work by Nicola Piovani

Giuseppe Pennisi describes an English conductor's visit to Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the Roman debut of Gluck's 'Orfeo'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to contemporary music in a baroque setting

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to German pianist Alexander Lonquich

Giuseppe Pennisi is impressed by Musorgsky's 'Khovanshchina' at La Scala Milan

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Petrassi and Shostakovich in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi describes how Cagliari awakens Antônio Carlos Gomes' 'Lo Schiavo' after a long sleep

Giuseppe Pennisi witnesses a true triumph with Donizetti's 'Anna Bolena' in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to special Rossini in a special place

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences the Italian version of Benjamin Britten's 'The Little Sweep'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Nicola Sani. 'The performances by Roberto Fabbriciani and Alvise Vidolin, frequent collaborators of Nicola Sani, were just superb.'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from the opening night at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Giuseppe Pennisi looks forward to a summer of opera in Italy

Kurtág and Brahms in concert

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Palermo on the opening of Teatro Massimo's 2019 opera season

Accademia Bizantina's 'The Art of Fugue' enthralls Rome and Giuseppe Pennisi

A new Florence production of Wagner's 'The Flying Dutchman'

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Wagner and Mahler from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome

Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's new production of 'Swan Lake'

Janácek's 'Kát'a Kabanová'

Manfred Honeck conducts, and Giuseppe Pennisi was in the audience

Giuseppe Verdi's 'Attila', opening La Scala's 2018-19 season

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's new season

An Autumn trilogy of operas

György Kurtág's 'Fin de Partie'

Leonard Bernstein's 'Trouble in Tahiti' at Rome's Nuova Consonanza Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi explores the mesmerising aural world of John Adams

Giuseppe Pennisi attends the inaugural concert of The Rome International Festival of Sacred Music and Art

Graham Vick's 'The Marriage of Figaro' in Rome

Haydn's oratorio begins one of Rome's major concert seasons

Leonard Bernstein's 'West Side Story' begins Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia's season

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's autumn season

Giuseppe Pennisi was expecting a graduate performance of Monteverdi, but experienced a masterpiece

'Attila' at the Verdi Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences 'Le Trouvère', the last operatic staging in Parma's Teatro Farnese

'Un Giorno di Regno' in Busseto

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from the 2018 Verdi Festival

Gaspare Spontini's 'Le metamorfosi di Pasquale'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from the Sagra Musicale Umbra Festival

'Il Trittico' at the Puccini Festival

Giovanni Pacini's 'Il Convitato di Pietra'

Pier Luigi Pizzi's new 'Barber of Seville' enthralls the Rossini Opera Festival

Rossini's 'Adina' in Pesaro

'Ricciardo e Zoriade' at the Rossini Opera Festival

Tchaikovsky's 'The Queen of Spades' at Salzburg

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on the Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award

Mozart's 'Die Zauberflöte' at the Salzburg Summer Festival

A homage to Beat Furrer in Salzburg

Giuseppe Pennisi sends his first report from the Salzburg Summer Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi was at Rome's Terme di Caracalla for a new production of Prokofiev's ballet

Orchestral music by Toshio Hosokawa. 'The interpreters ... are high level and accustomed to working with Hosokawa and his music.'

Music from Japan and Portugal at Rome's 'Opus' Festival

'La Traviata' in 'La Dolce Vita'

Two summer concerts on an evening in Rome

Puccini's 'La bohème' in Rome

Opera North enthralls the audience at the Ravenna Festival in Cole Porter's 'Kiss me Kate'

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Bologna for a very political 'Don Carlo'

Adriano Guarnieri's new opera at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Kenneth McMillan's ballet on Massenet's music arrives in Rome

A Hindemith and Mascagni double bill in Cagliari

Giuseppe Pennisi was in the audience for the first performance in Rome of Benjamin Britten's 'Billy Budd'

Hindemith's 'Cardillac' at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Giuseppe Pennisi talks to Francesco Giambrone, Superindent of Teatro Massimo di Palermo

Giuseppe Pennisi attends a special Opera Domani performance

Dmitri Shostakovich's 'Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District' in Naples

Riccardo Zandonai's 'Francesca da Rimini' at La Scala

'I Puritani in Palermo'

A mixed reception for 'Cav and Pag' at Teatro dell'Opera

Wagner's 'Der fliegende Holländer' at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome

Constantinos Carydis conducts Russian and Greek music in Rome

A triptych of modern ballets

Poulenc's 'Dialogues des Carmélites' in Bologna

Stravinsky's 'A Soldier's Tale'

Contrasting Busoni and Puccini in Cagliari

Giuseppe Pennisi is moved by Richard Strauss and Schoenberg played by the Stradivari Sextet

Giuseppe Pennisi is more impressed by the musical than the visual aspects of Donizetti's 'La favorite' in Florence

Giuseppe Pennisi is impressed with the first performance of Marco Tutino's 'Miseria e Nobilità'

A new production of Bellini's 'La Sonnambula'

French Carnival Operettas in Venice

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Messiaen in Rome

Lisa Batiashvili plays Prokofiev

Giuseppe Pennisi samples a concert series marking the one hundredth anniversary of the French composer's death

Lalo and Pink Floyd ballets in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Bernardo Pasquini's 'La Sete di Cristo'

Giuseppe Pennisi describes the recent performance history of Rossini's 'William Tell' and reviews Palermo's 2018 production

Giuseppe Pennisi describes the stormy reaction to Verdi's 'I Masnadieri'

Valery Gergiev conducts Tchaikovsky's 'Iolanta'

Kodály, Glass and Bruckner

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to music by Giacinto Scelsi

An anthology of twentieth century music

Berlioz's 'La damnation de Faust' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Lisa Batiashvili plays Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, and Giuseppe Pennisi is impressed

La Scala revives 'Andrea Chénier', reviewed via live HD projection

The Joy of Marionette Operas

Early twentieth century French music by Ibert, Saint Saëns, Debussy and Ravel

Marco Tutino's 'La Ciociara' comes to Italy

Giuseppe Pennisi writes about three operas on the brink of the twentieth century, performed as a cycle in Ravenna

Giuseppe Pennisi describes the opening of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's new ballet season, with a new version of Ludwig Minkus' work, creating a stylised and colorful fairytale world

The first performance of Salvatore Sciarrino's 'Ti vedo, ti sento, mi perdo'

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences two very different performances

Salvatore Sciarrino's opera 'Superflumina'

Giuseppe Pennisi attends one of Stefano Belisari's last performances as Elio e le Storie Tese, in one of Mozart's most mysterious and ambiguous operas

Giuseppe Pennisi on Puccini's 'La fanciulla del West' in Cagliari

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Florence, where the audience is enthralled by the first performance there of Puccini's 'La Rondine'

Gaetano Donizetti's 'Pia de' Tolomei' in Pisa, but on its way to Charleston, South Carolina

Daniel Auber's 'Fra Diavolo' is back in Rome

Szymanowski's 'Król Roger'

An opera about the Italian theoretical physicist Ettore Majorana

Giuseppe Pennisi returns to the 2017 Verdi Festival

'Jérusalem' at the 2017 Verdi Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Russian orchestral music at the George Enescu Festival

Paul Hindemith's 'Mathis der Maler' at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest

A Roland Petit soirée at Opera di Roma

Two concerts in Salzburg impress Giuseppe Pennisi

Alban Berg from Salzburg

Handel's 'Ariodante' at Salzburg

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Shostakovich's 'Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District'

Aribert Reimann's 'Lear' at Salzburg

Rossini's 'Torvaldo e Dorliska'

Giuseppe Pennisi comments on Rossini's 'La Pietra di Paragone' in Pesaro

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on the first performance of the original version of Rossini's 'Siege of Corinth'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from the Macerata Opera Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Carlo Boccadoro's chamber opera 'Shi', based on Matteo Ricci's Jesuit mission in China

'La Rondine' at the Puccini Opera Festival

A new 'Turandot' at the Puccini Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi was in Siena for the Chigiana Award concert

A new production of 'Carmen' stirs a mini-International Controversy

Giuseppe Pennisi samples the two themes at this summer's Ravenna Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on the new production of 'Salome' in Leipzig

'Die Frau ohne Schatten' at the Strauss Festival in Leipzig

'Arabella' from Festival Strauss in Leipzig

Rossini's 'Il viaggio a Reims' in Rome

Verdi in Sardinia

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a trendy concert series in Rome

Benjamin Britten's 'Peter Grimes' in Bologna

'Lulu' lands in Rome after fifty years

Lyric Verdi, and a great success, but in some ways a 'Don Carlo' of losers at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Giuseppe Pennisi discusses operas representing intrigues which couldn't be discussed in public

William Walton's 'Façade' in Rome, alongside a symphony by Alfredo Casella

Giordano's 'Andrea Chénier' returns to the Teatro dell'Opera after more than forty years

Antonio Pappano's St John Passion

Richard Strauss' 'Elektra', back in Naples

Donizetti's 'Maria Stuarda' in Rome

Vladimir Jurowski conducts Zemlinsky and Mahler

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Yuri Bashmet and his Moscow Soloists ensemble

The Eight Seasons of Vivaldi and Piazzolla. '... Yury Revich is a superb soloist, a real virtuoso with tremendous imagination and a splendid use of his instrument.'

Tchaikovsky's 'The Enchantress'

Janácek's 'Kát'a Kabanová' in Turin

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Robert Schumann's oratorio 'Das Paradies und die Peri'

Giuseppe Pennisi watches and listens to Tchaikovsky's 'Sleeping Beauty'

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences a different 'Sleeping Beauty', Ottorino Respighi's 'La Bella Addormentata nel Bosco', at the Lyric Theatre in Cagliari

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Venice, one of Richard Wagner's favourite cities

Verdi's 'Macbeth' in Palermo

Giuseppe Pennisi was in the audience at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Leonardo Vinci and Pietro Metastasio's 'Didone Abbandonata'

'Die Fledermaus' on Twelfth Night

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Christmas concerts in the Holy Land

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Verdi from Cagliari

Giuseppe Pennisi was at La Scala for the start of the new season in Milan

A strong production of Rossini's 'Otello' opens Teatro San Carlo's new season in Naples

'Tristan und Isolde' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Patricia Kopatchcinskaja and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra

'La Liberazione di Ruggiero dall'Isola di Alcina' by the almost forgotten Francesca Caccini

The first performance in modern times of Bellini's 'Adelson e Salvini'

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews the first performance of Filippo Perocco's opera 'Aquagranda'

Janácek's 'Jenufa' in Palermo

Beethoven's 'Fidelio'

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Ravenna for a trilogy of Danube stage works

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews Verdi in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences Camille Saint-Saëns' opera 'Proserpine' in Munich

Giuseppe Pennisi enjoys the baroque show 'Aria' in Rome

'Giovanna D'Arco' in the Farnese Theater

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the revitalised Verdi Festival in Parma for 'Don Carlo'

Tchaikovsky in Rome

Contrasting concerts at the Sagra Musicale Umbra

Giuseppe Pennisi's first of two reports from the Sagra Musicale Umbra

Henry Purcell, arranged by Atilio Cremonesi

Giuseppe Pennisi attends two first performances at the Pergolesi Spontini Festival in Jesi

Giuseppe Pennisi compares La Fenice's Bellini revival with an earlier production in Naples

France at the Festival of Nations

'Il Turco in Italia' and 'Ciro in Babilonia' at the Rossini Opera Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro for an original and moving 'La Donna del Lago'

Giuseppe Pennisi's last report from this year's Salzburg Festival features a new production of Mozart's 'Così fan tutte'

Giuseppe Pennisi gets a rare chance to hear Richard Strauss' 'Der Liebe der Danae'

Spiritual and religious music at the Salzburg Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi, reporting from Salzburg, finds the first performance of Thomas Adès' new opera 'The Exterminating Angel' even more engrossing than Luis Bunuel

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Siena's Chigiana International Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences a double 'Barber of Seville' in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi was in the audience in Rome

Mozart's 'Così fan tutte'

Giuseppe Pennisi is impressed by Donizetti's religious opera 'Linda di Chamounix'

Salvatore Sciarrino's 'Luci mie traditrici', one of the most performed contemporary operas, finally reaches a major Italian opera house

Giuseppe Pennisi assesses three works at a contemporary music festival in Rome

A new production of 'La traviata' in Rome

'Albert Herring' in Florence

Giuseppe Pennisi investigates a Puccini production with one hundred and fifty performances in twelve months

Giordano's 'La cena delle beffe'

The new critical edition of Puccini's 'La Fanciulla del West'

Tchaikovsky's 'Iolanta' in Florence

A concert in memory of the Italian conductor

Puccini's 'Il Trittico' as seen by Michieletto and Rustioni

Alfredo Casella's fairy tale 'La Donna Serpente'

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Printemps des Arts Festival

Respighi's 'Sunken Bell' in Cagliari

Berlioz's 'Benvenuto Cellini'

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Pisa for Arrigo Boito's 'Mefistofele'

Mahler's 'Creation'

Stravinsky's 'Oedipus Rex'

Eleonora Abbagnato's 'Four Great Choreographers' at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Naples

The first of three new 'Barber of Seville' productions marking the opera's bicentenary

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews Hervé's 'Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde'

Handel's 'Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno'

Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung' ends the Palermo 'Ring' cycle

Rossini's 'La Cenerentola' in Rome

Special concerts in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the big screen in Rome

Unusual ballet productions in Italy

Teatro Massimo di Palermo's 'Siegfried'

Christmas music in Rome

Verdi's 'Giovanna D'Arco' at La Scala

Hans Werner Henze's 'The Bassarids'

Mozart's 'Idomeneo'

Donizetti's 'Don Pasquale'

Richard Strauss' 'Elektra' in Bologna

Giuseppe Pennisi samples The Vatican's recent festival of sacred music and art

Antonio Pappano's 'Beethoven and the Contemporaries'

Alban Berg's 'Wozzeck' at La Scala

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences a new dance in Rome

Symphonies, cantatas and concertos by J S Bach

'The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny' by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht

The first in a series of orchestral concerts in Rome

The Tallis Scholars celebrate Arvo Pärt's eightieth birthday at Italy's Sagra Musicale Umbra

German operas at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Bucharest

Giuseppe Pennisi reviews John Adams' opera 'I Was looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky'

Giuseppe Pennisi was present when La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra visited Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro

Opera at the Salzburg Summer Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi continues his reports from the Salzburg Summer Festival

Wolfgang Rihm's 'Die Eroberung von Mexico'

Giuseppe Pennisi attended the Chigiana International Festival in Siena

Puccini operas in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Aix-en-Provence for three operas and an orchestral concert

Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia's Gershwin Gala

Tchaikovsky's 'Queen of Spades'

Alessandro Solbiati's 'Il Suono Giallo'

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Ravenna to hear Pierre Boulez, Adriano Guarnieri and Nicola Piovani

Giorgio Battistelli's new opera for Expo Milano 2015

Giorgio Strehler's 'Marriage of Figaro' finally reaches Rome

Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' from Bologna

Myung-Whun Chung returns to Rome to conduct Beethoven and Mahler

Manfred Honeck conducts Mozart and Mahler

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino's 'Fidelio' is performed under difficult conditions

Giuseppe Pennisi describes an intimate 'Aida' in Rome

'Jenufa' at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna

Music by the French composer George Onslow

'Euridice' according to Salvatore Sciarrino

Giuseppe Pennisi attends a memorial to Luca Ronconi

Printemps des Arts de Monte Carlo

The French ensemble Les Paladins

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Rome

Mozart's 'Lucio Silla' at La Scala

Gluck's 'Orfeo e Euridice' in Palermo, in the Berlioz version

Bellini's 'I Puritani'

'Le Ventre de Paris'

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences an icy Paris/Milan production of Monteverdi's 'L'incoronazione di Poppea'

Hans Werner Henze's love for Italy, and 'Gisella!' in Palermo

Zimmermann's 'Die Soldaten' in Milan

Willy Decker's production of Massenet's opera finally reaches Rome

Verdi's 'Un ballo in maschera' in Bologna

'Traviata' on the lagoon

'Il Trovatore in Naples'

Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of La Scala's opera season

Giuseppe Pennisi visits La Fenice for Verdi's 'Simon Boccanegra'

Dvorák's 'Rusalka' in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi was in Naples for Richard Strauss' 'Salome'

Verdi's Rigoletto

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening concert of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia's season

Stefano Ranzani conducts Verdi's 'Simon Boccanegra'

A journey to the Almighty with Verdi's 'The Force of Destiny', highly rated

Graham Vick's 'Don Giovanni'

De Giosa's 'Don Checco'

Purcell's 'King Arthur' travels to Italy

The Francesco Siciliani Prize at Sagra Musicale Umbra

'Die Entführung aus dem Serail' at Sagra Musicale Umbra

Giuseppe Pennisi sends a second report from the 2014 Rossini Opera Festival

'The Barber of Seville' at the Rossini Opera Festival

'Madama Butterfly' and 'Il Trittico' at the Puccini Festival

Richard Strauss at Salzburg

Women and War at the Salzburg Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences Salzburg Festival's 'Ouverture spirituelle'

Wagner's 'Ring' at the Tyroler Festspiele Erl

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences 'Il Bajazet'

A triptych of ballet on tour, with dancing in the monumental Roman ruins

'Carmen' in Bizet's original version

Palermo's mixed reception to an innovative 'Norma'

Giuseppe Pennisi enjoys 'Orfeo e Euridice' at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and surveys the different versions of Gluck's opera

Prokofiev's 'The Love of Three Oranges'

Twentieth century operas in Rome

A new Italian production of Don Giovanni

Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore in Rome

Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde'

Andrea Molino's Qui non c'è perché

Berlioz's Les Troyens

Brits in Rome

Rossini's 'Maometto II'

A Zemlinsky-Puccini double bill in Turin

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Printemps des Arts in Monte Carlo

Silvia Colasanti's 'La Metamorfosi'

Power, technology and sex in Rimsky Korsakov's 'The Tsar's Bride'

Giuseppe Pennisi was at Puccini's 'Manon Lescaut', performed under difficult conditions in Rome

A special 'Otello'

Rome's 'Controtempo' contemporary music festival

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Pisa for The Tales of Hoffmann

Giuseppe Pennisi compares versions of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony

Giuseppe Pennisi attends a Ravel double bill in Rome

'Feuersnot' by Richard Strauss

A new production of Wagner's 'Parsifal'

New Year in Italy

Comic operas in Berlin

Meyerbeer's L'Africaine

Verdi's 'La Traviata' at the start of La Scala's new season

Giuseppe Pennisi attended a successful performance of Verdi's 'Ernani' in Rome

Verdi's Shakespeare trilogy in Ravenna

'Simon Boccanegra' in Turin

Giuseppe Pennisi was at a concert performance in Rome of Britten's 'Peter Grimes'

Turandot in Rome as written by Puccini

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to contemporary music at two Italian festivals

Wagner and Britten in the Umbrian Hills

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Sagra Musicale Umbra

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Schoenberg in Bucharest

Contemporary music at the Enescu Festival

'Otello' in an immigration camp at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to orchestral and chamber concerts at the Salzburg Summer Festival

An unusual Salzburg 'Ring'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Mozart, Verdi and Wagner operas from Salzburg's summer festival

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the 2013 Torre del Lago Festival for a new international production of 'Tosca' and a performance of 'Rigoletto' with young singers

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the 2013 Rossini Opera Festival

Summer opera in Rome

Contemporary and modern music at Aix-en-Provence

'Electra' and 'Elena' at Aix-en-Provence

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Tunisia's El Jem Symphony Festival

Britten's 'Curlew River' in Rome

A half-baked 'Don Pasquale'

Purcell's 'Dido and Aeneas' in the Roman Gym

Three one act operas exploring the condition of women

Antonio Pappano's 'Un Ballo in Maschera'

A new start for 'Il Trionfo di Clelia'? Giuseppe Pennisi has his doubts

Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung' at La Scala Milan

Giuseppe Pennisi attended a performance of Wagner's 'Rienzi' in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Wagner's 'Flying Dutchman'

Eighteenth century Neapolitan cello concertos fascinate Giuseppe Pennisi

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of Verdi's 'Don Carlo' in Turin

Saint-Saëns' 'Samson' as envisaged by La Fura dels Baus

Bartók and Cambodian music in Monte Carlo

Alexander Raskatov's 'A Dog's Heart'

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences Ravenna's first performance of Britten's 'The Rape of Lucretia'

Makropoulos in the Lagoon

Verdi's rarely performed 'I Due Foscari'

A shocking 'Die Walküre'

Bayreuth's 'Das Rheingold' previewed in Rome

Adolphe Adam's 'Giselle'

An evening of piano music from Giuseppe Andaloro

Verdi, Shakespeare and Macbeth's lust for power

Giuseppe Pennisi takes a sniff at Shostakovich's 'The Nose'

If 'Das Rheingold' becomes a comedy

A piano journey on the Danube

Giuseppe Pennisi discusses a sexy 'Falstaff' at La Scala

The legacy of Giacinto Scelsi twenty-five years on

Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring'

Music by Vivaldi in the churches of Rome

Minkus' 'Don Quixote' in Rome

Concerts in Rome for Peace

A sexless 'Traviata' opens San Carlo's new season in Naples

A controversial 'Lohengrin' at La Scala

'Simon Boccanegra' in Rome

Works by Sciarrino and Messiaen. '... quite eclectic ...'

Chinese National Opera's 'Turandot' on tour

Rome's new production of Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet'

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Sagra Musicale Umbra 2012

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Spontini's recently discovered comedy 'La Fuga in Maschera'

More from this summer's Salzburg Festival

At the Salzburg Summer Festival, Giuseppe Pennisi was enthralled by Bernd Alois Zimmermann's 'Die Soldaten'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on his week at the Rossini Opera Festival

Summer Opera in Rome

Giuseppe Pennisi describes how the Puccini Opera Festival is at a turning point

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the annual Munich Opera Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi describes how Gounod's 'Roméo et Juliette' attracts a new audience in Verona

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the 2012 Tyrol Festival for new productions of 'Lohengrin' and 'Tosca'

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the 2012 Ravenna Festival

Benjamin Britten's chamber opera 'The Turn of the Screw' opens the 55th Spoleto Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a three-day musical party near Lucca in Tuscany

Britten's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

An Almodóvar-style 'Elisir d'Amore' from Valencia and Palermo

Giuseppe Pennisi was in Berlin for the opening night of a revival of 'The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on bel canto in Europe

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's production of Verdi's 'Attila'

Giuseppe Pennisi was at La Scala for a new production of 'Peter Grimes'

Zemlinksy's 'Der König Kandaules'

'Der Rosenkavalier' at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, a festival with a rich programme but a dire financial situation

Giuseppe Pennisi was in Ravenna for the revival of a successful production of Handel's 'Rinaldo'

Giuseppe Pennisi describes a rather half-baked 'Barber of Seville'

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of the new Parma-Montecarlo production of Verdi's 'Stiffelio'

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Palermo for the critical edition of Musorgsky's 'Boris Godunov'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on the opening night of 'Die Zauberflöte' in Rome

Strauss's 'woman' on the analyst's couch

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Naples on 'I Masnadieri' and 'Die Räuber'

Operas for reconstruction at L'Aquila

A new 'Butterfly' production in Rome

Franz Schmidt's 'The Book with Seven Seals'

A Neapolitan 'Threepenny Opera'

A shock to the normally conservative audience at Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Verdi's 'Aida' began the 2012 season at Parma's Teatro Regio, and Giuseppe Pennisi was there

Giuseppe Pennisi discovers, via Bernstein's 'Candide', why we don't live in 'the best of all possible worlds'

Giuseppe Pennisi was in eastern Sicily for the opening night of Teatro Massimo Bellini's 2012 season - a low cost but high quality 'Carmen'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on music for the Christmas and New Year period in Italy, for children and for those who love children

On the rediscovery of the Italian symphonic tradition

Under Riccardo Muti's baton, Verdi's first Shakespearean opera inaugurates Rome's opera season

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a controversial new production of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' which opened La Scala's 2011-12 season in Milan

Sex and power in the aftermath of a Middle Eastern war, when 'Semiramide' opens the opera season in Naples

Two concerts conducted by Antonio Pappano

Rossini at La Scala

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of the new production in Florence of Janácek's 'The Makropoulos Case'

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Verdi Festival, which is short of money but not of ideas

Teatro Real, Paris Opéra and La Scala join forces for the centenary of 'Der Rosenkavalier'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on the Richard Strauss masterpiece co-produced by Rome's Teatro dell'Opera and the Salzburg Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the first performance of Alessandro Solbiati's 'La Leggenda' in Turin, and raises the issue of the replicability of modern grand opera

Giuseppe Pennisi takes a glimpse at the Enescu Festival's Jubilee programme

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Sagra Musicale Umbra, celebrating old and new continents

Avant-garde and late romanticism at La Sagra Malatestiana

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on 'La Salustia' and 'La Serva Padrona' from the Pergolesi Festival

Contemporary music at Salzburg

Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Janácek and Strauss at the Salzburg Summer Festival

New aspects of Rossini brought to light at the 2011 Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro

The 2011 Sferisterio Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the 2011 Puccini Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi has mixed feelings about 'Aida' at the Baths of Caracalla

Giuseppe Pennisi reports from the 2011 Tiroler Festspiele

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the 2011 Aix-en-Provence Festival and reports on four of the six operas

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the Italian premiere in Ravenna of Mercadante's 'I Due Figaro'

A new production of Puccini's 'La bohème' at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the sophisticated music festival in a Tuscan mountain convent and stays for the full three days

Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra are currently on a world tour. Giuseppe Pennisi listens to their concert in Rome

'La Battaglia di Legnano'

'Sicilian Vespers' as conceived by Verdi

Verdi's 'Ernani' - more revolutionary than patriotic

Works by Eötvös and Bartók

Giuseppe Pennisi was at the Italian première of Bohuslav Martinu's Greek Passion

Set in the aftermath of a nuclear war, the first performance of Luca Francesconi's 'Quartett' is

Thanks to a sparkling 'Barber of Seville', Giuseppe Pennisi rediscovers the beauty of Rossini's orchestration

A very British version of Mozart's 'Die Entführung aus dem Serail' returns to Rome

Two symphony orchestras are playing Mahler in Rome

A Ferrero / Dallapiccola double bill in Modena

Handel's 'Giulio Cesare in Egitto'

A new production of Verdi's 'Nabucco' celebrates the 150th anniversary of Italy's Unification

The first Milan performance of Britten's 'Death in Venice'

Shostakovich's 'The Nose'

British humour under the Neapolitan sun, in 'L'Elisir d'Amore' in Rome and San Francisco

Marco Tutino's 'Senso'

Verdi's 'La Forza del Destino'

'Les Nuits d'Eté' from Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

William Bolcom's 'A View from the Bridge'

A fresh start for Gnecchi's 'Cassandra'

'Ariadne auf Naxos' in Paris

Dancing to Bizet's 'L'Arlésienne' and 'Carmen'

'The Merry Widow'

Puccini's 'La Fanciulla del West'

Giuseppe Pennisi was at La Scala Milan for Wagner's 'Die Walküre'

Rossini's 'Moïse et Pharaon'

Ian McEwan and Michael Berkeley's 'For You'

Two contemporary music festivals in Rome

Mahler's Fifth Symphony - a self-metamorphosis from grief to ecstatic energy

Mariella Devia and the Twilight of Bel Canto

Shostakovich's 'Leningrad'

Celso Albelo hits Venice as Nemorino in Donizetti's 'L'Elisir d'Amore'

The Israel Camerata Orchestra Jerusalem

Hans Werner Henze's 'Pollicino' thrills children and adults in Florence

Rossini's 'William Tell', from Rome to the BBC Proms

Giuseppe Pennisi describes the 2010 Parma Verdi Festival's stormy beginning

'Orphée' at the Roma-Europa Festival

Donizetti's last Tudor Queen returns to Rome, and Carmela Remigio enchants Giuseppe Pennisi

The new Palermo production of Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville', a casual worker in Almodóvar's Seville

Giuseppe Pennisi visits Italy's Sagra Musicale Umbra

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Sagra Musicale Malatestiana

Romabarocca Ensemble plays Carlo Rainaldi. '... they will go far in the rediscovery of Baroque music.'

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Salzburg Festival to investigate 'the downfall of the myth and the spirit of the music'

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the 2010 Rossini Opera Festival

'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival

The 'Glory of God' through three Verdi operas at the Sferisterio Festival 2010

Giuseppe Pennisi finds 'Madama Butterfly' at the Puccini Festival a pleasure for the ears and the eyes

'La Fanciulla del West' at the Puccini Festival

Giuseppe Pennisi files his last report from the 2010 Aix-en-Provence Festival

Oscar Strasnoy's 'Un Retour'

Stravinsky's 'Le Rossignol'

'Don Giovanni' in Aix-en-Provence, a black comedy of sex and loneliness

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Ravenna Festival

Massenet's 'Manon' returns to Rome

Shchedrin's 'Anna Karenina' and other premières at The Stars of the White Nights Festival

Mahler's Third Symphony

'Madama Butterfly' at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera

Barenboim's 'Das Rheingold' at La Scala

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Antonio Pappano and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Giuseppe Pennisi attends the beginning of the Tiroler Festspiele 2010

Richard Strauss' 'Die Frau ohne Schatten'

Massenet's 'Werther' on the psychotherapist's couch

Operas by Zemlinsky and Puccini

Franz Schreker's 'Die Gezeichneten'

'Lulu' lands at La Scala

Sixty Leitmotives for 'Tosca'

The bicentennial 'Simon Boccanegra' in Parma

Giuseppe Pennisi has mixed feelings about La Scala's new Wagnerian production

Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Arrigo Boito's 'Mefistofele'

Tan Dun's 'The Banquet'

The current Italian season of Mozart's 'Idomeneo'

Giuseppe Pennisi tours Austria with a young Italian symphony orchestra

Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Vienna State Opera

In the 20th anniversary year of Bernstein's death, Giuseppe Pennisi writes about Italy's homage to Lenny

Bologna's Renaissance music. '... an efficient and effective local ensemble ...'

The first performance of the unabridged 'Elektra' enthralls the audience

Verdi comic operas on stage

Henze and Mahler in Rome

'Tosca' and 'Butterfly' with live electronics

Giuseppe Pennisi experiences Zeffirelli's latest 'La traviata'

Giuseppe Pennisi reports that chamber opera is alive and well

'Carmen' at La Scala

Articles about Giuseppe Pennisi

Classical music news. August 2023 Newsletter - Watch and listen to our August 2023 one hour video newsletter - The Creative Spark

CD Spotlight. Overwhelming Performances - Previously unreleased recordings by Jessye Norman, heard by Gerald Fenech. 'Unmissable for all opera buffs.'

CD Spotlight. A De-orchestration? - Keith Bramich listens to Richard Blackford's new version of Verdi's Messa da Requiem. '... Richard Blackford is a respected and experienced composer, and this is no mere thinning of the texture ...'

CD Spotlight. Immense Dramatic Power - Gerald Fenech listens to Berlioz. '... an interpretation overflowing with passion and flair ...'

Classical music news. May 2023 Newsletter - Our May 2023 PDF newsletter has just been published

Echoes of Oblivion by Robert McCarney - Per Giuseppe

Classical music news - April 2023 Obituaries - Our summary of those the classical music world has lost this month

Classical music news. October 2022 Newsletter - Our October 2022 MP3 newsletter has just been published

Classical music news. June 2022 Newsletter - Watch and listen to our June 2022 newsletter - a special feature on women composers

Classical music news. April 2022 Newsletter - Watch and listen to our April 2022 newsletter

Classical music news. March 2022 Newsletter - Watch and listen to our March 2022 newsletter

Classical music news. November 2021 Newsletter - Watch and listen to our November 2021 newsletter

Classical music news. Defining Our Field - Classical Music Daily's June 2021 Newsletter is a panel discussion led by John Dante Prevedini, and has just been published as a video podcast

Classical music news. Creativity, Innovation and Re-invention - Classical Music Daily's April 2021 Newsletter has just been published as a video podcast

Classical music news. Hang in there together - Classical Music Daily's March 2021 Newsletter has just been published as a video podcast

Classical music news. Singing in Cars? - Classical Music Daily's February 2021 Newsletter has just been published as a video podcast

Classical music news. Upgrading to the Visual - Classical Music Daily's January 2021 Newsletter has just been published in a new video podcast format

A Double Career - Giuseppe Pennisi describes his life as an economist in the world of music