Stefano Ricci

Giulio is a widower, struggling to raise three sons, Marco, Rudi, and Mimmo, as best he can. He lives in Rome's working-class Garbatella neighborhood and runs a wine shop with his two brothers. Lucia, meanwhile, comes from Milan's middle-class background; she's divorced and trying to rebuild her life with her two daughters, Eva and Alice. The two meet by chance and recognize each other: they had a fling as teenagers, many years earlier. Yet first love is never forgotten, and so Giulio and Lucia find themselves together again. Their meeting, however, changes not only the lives of a man and a woman, but also those of two families as different as could be. Two families who find themselves living under the same roof without even having had the time to get to know each other well.

Marino Faliero opened the sixth edition of "Donizetti Opera" in the restored Donizetti Theater in Bergamo. The orchestra and choir are on stage, while the action takes place in the stalls in an intricate maze of walkways and scaffolding. Riccardo Frizza conducts, with creative direction by Ricci/Forte and staging by Stefano Ricci.

A beautiful, coldhearted Chinese princess has issued a decree for her suitors: whoever cannot solve her riddles to win her hand will be beheaded. When a mysterious man passes her test, will she finally open her heart to love? Puccini’s last opera Turandot, unfinished at his death, is musically his most adventurous work. Infused with Asian touches, it cannot deny its Italian heritage, culminating in the world-famous aria ‘Nessun dorma’. In 2017, the director duo Ricci/Forte were awarded the prestigious Italian Music Critics Award Franco Abbiati for best direction for their creative project.

The opera that established Verdi’s greatness as a composer, Nabucco follows the plight of the Jews as they are exiled from their homeland by the eponymous Babylonian King. This 2019 production from Verdi Festival Parma won critical acclaim for its directors, Stefano Ricci and Gianni Forte for whom opera is a means to question the world of today. The curtain rises in the bowels of a modern warship...