Gatti director of Maggio, Mehta records on the podium

Surprise announcement at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Daniele Gatti will be the main director of the theater for the next three years. A director who goes alongside, certainly not downsizing, the role of the star of the theater, the honorary director for life, Zubin Mehta. Which in turn receives the 'strong' task of getting on the podium 30 times in the season and maybe even 40 between tours abroad and extra commitments. The coup, the unexpected announcement of Gatti at the helm of the Maggio, was given in his own way by the superintendent Alexander Pereira, who today presented the 2021-2022 opera symphonic season with nine new operas, plus two for children to whom the theater holds a lot, and 13 concerts directed by top level drumsticks. Not only Mehta and Gatti but also Riccardo Muti, Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit. L'investiture of Gatti as principal conductor (which will officially take place on July 8 during a lunch at the theater) "in no way diminishes our plans and our ideas with maestro Zubin Mehta - explained Pereira - who will make an equal number of productions and of attendance. A theater can have two such important personalities for the next few years ". The centrality of Mehta is confirmed by the more than 30 appearances scheduled for next season (in addition to the trips abroad). The maestro will open the bill on August 30 with the Cosi fan tutti by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and will then conduct the second opera title of the season: La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi directed by Davide Livermore. He will also be the protagonist ofinauguration of the new auditorium of the theater on December 22nd and the following day of the staging of Fidelio's new staging. The nine proposed productions, including Gaetano Donizetti's' Linda di Chamounix ', Giuseppe Verdi's' Falstaff', Giacomo Puccini's' Madama Butterfly ', are all new and only two -' Linda di Chamounix ', and' Cosi fan tutti '- were staged in the theater for recording and streaming, but were never seen in the hall by the public. The symphonic season, preceded by two trips to Grafenegg on 14 August and to Budapest on 15 August, with two concerts conducted by Zubin Mehta and pianist Rudolf Buchbinder, includes 13 concerts with the Maggio orchestra and other great orchestras. On 12 September Gatti will direct theMozart orchestra in a program with music by Igor Stravinskij and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the 700 years since the death of Dante Alighieri (13/9) Riccardo Muti will conduct the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra and the Maggio Choir, with the orchestra professors of the Maggio and the Arena di Verona in a concert with music by Tigran Mansurian and Giuseppe Verdi's Laudi to the Virgin Mary. December 11 will be the evening dedicated to the orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater of St. Petersburg conducted by Valery Gergiev, while the orchestra of Monte Carlo, led by Charles Dutoit, will be in May on January 10 with Martha Argerich at the piano. During the presentation of the new season Pereira also announced that the84th edition of the May Festival will open on 12 April and that in 2022 the great hall of the theater will be closed for a few months for construction. In the meantime, the project of the 'Maggio Toscano', that is a series of concerts around the region, will continue. "The day after tomorrow we will go to Beethoven's con ninth in Massa Carrara - said Pereira - then I want to do a concert on September 3 in Grosseto, then on November 24 it will probably be in Arezzo, then we plan to go before Christmas with a performance at the Giglio Theater in Lucca ".then November 24 will probably be in Arezzo, then we plan to go before Christmas with a performance at the Giglio theater in Lucca ".then November 24 will probably be in Arezzo, then we plan to go before Christmas with a performance at the Giglio theater in Lucca ".