The ReGeneration Festival 2020

In an exceptional manifestation of hope and renewal,
the 4th edition of The New Generation Festival will be
transformed into The ReGeneration Festival,
co-presented with the Uffizi Galleries
and in association with theCity of Florence at the landmark Palazzo Pitti and Boboli Gardens, from
26 August to 29 August 2020.

Introducing a budding cast of tomorrow’s stars in a
staged production of the Cinderella story in

Rossini’s magical La Cenerentola

, the ReGeneration Festival will host opera, jazz with
Anush Hovhannisyan, and concerts at the Palazzo Pitti
in collaboration with Musica con le Ali and in the charming
ornamental gardens of Palazzo Corsini al Prato.

It is fitting that the city of the Renaissance should now set
the stage for another to be reborn. Extraordinary times
call for an extraordinary artistic response. The
ReGeneration Festival will demonstrate the restorative
power of the arts in the face of a global pandemic.

The unprecedented four-day programme of concerts and
productions will be offered to audiences entirely for free and will be
broadcast both online and on-air.

Strict COVID-19 protocols
will keep artists and audiences safe throughout the
rehearsal period and festival. The New Generation
Festival will stage a unique celebration of creativity
that

conforms to the requirements of social distancing

and follows rigorous health and safety protocols,
including temperature checks and obligatory masks. The
festival will also encourage spectators to wear
original social-distancing outfits and bygone crinoline
dresses as magnificent sartorial adoptions of safety
measures that marry form and function in the tradition
of the great Renaissance carnivals.

Performed on 26 and 29 August 2020 at the Palazzo
Pitti, Rossini’s enchanting retelling of the Cinderella
fairy-tale features rising stars Bulgarian
mezzo-soprano Svetlina Stoyanova as
Angelina (Cenerentola) and Canadian tenor Josh Lovell as her Prince, Don Ramiro.

Both singers are young members of the Vienna State
Opera ensemble, and Stoyanova is the 2017 winner of the
Neue Stimmen competition. Lovell previously appeared at
the 2018 Festival in Don Giovanni, with his
Don Ottavio described in The Independent as

“dream casting […] with an expressive purity of
tone which we all too seldom hear”

, winning the Grand Prize at the ‘s-Hertogenbosch
International Vocal Competition the same year.

The production will be directed byJean-Romain Vesperini and conducted by S·ndor K·rolyi. Video mapping designed
by Etienne Guiol and lighting by Christophe Chaupin will transport
audiences to the Royal Court of the French King Louis
XIV, with the costumes of Anna Maria Heinreich also drawing on
the Renaissance theme.

The young cast is completed with Gurgen Baveyan
(Dandini), Daniel Miros?aw (Don Magnifico), Blaise
Malaba (Alidoro), Marvic Monreal (Tisbe) and Giorgia
Paci (Clorinda). All singers are current members or
recent graduates of notable programmes worldwide
including the Royal Opera House’s Jette Parker Scheme
(Blaise Malaba) and Opernstudio Frankfurt (Gurgen
Baveyan). The international cast performing at the
outset of their careers are drawn from seven countries
around the world.

The roaring twenties come to Florence with iconic
moments of Broadway and Hollywood in The Three Divas on 28 August
2020, featuring singer Veronica Swift (a double winner
in the Jazztimes 2019 Readers’ Poll), Anush
Hovhannisyan, Shenel Johns, Sam Jewison, Yasushi
Nakamura, Dominick Farinacci and Dan Tepfer, in an
event co-produced with Piers Playfair, founder of the Catskill Jazz Factory.

Each evening will end in late-night musical
entertainment and revelry, in the Boboli Gardens and in
the festival’s usual home, the centuries-old Palazzo
Corsini al Prato across the river.

Dr Eike D. Schmidt
, Director of the Uffizi Galleries, said:


“After the enormous success of the collaborations
between the Uffizi Galleries with the Maggio
Musicale, with the Musica con le Ali association


? which offers two festivals every year in the Sala
Bianca


? and now also with the Florence Conservatoire
which for some weeks has been staging concerts for
visitors to the Palazzo Pitti every Saturday
morning, now the relationship that the Uffizi
Galleries has with music is intensifying and
strengthening even more. This is thanks to The
ReGeneration Festival: a great event that will
enchant the Boboli Gardens during the week in
which, among other things, we will have the
anniversary of the coronation of Cosimo I as Grand
Duke of Tuscany (27 August 1569).”

The New Generation Festival
provides an international platform for young musical
talent, with the aim of breaking down barriers between
generations: the age of the Festival’s 2019 audience
ranged from 8 to 91 and over 50% of the opera audience
was under 35. The 2019 Festival sold out to a diverse
and international audience that represented over 25
countries.

The New Generation Festival was created by co-founders
Maximilian Fane (Artistic Director), Roger Granville
(Creative Director), and Frankie Parham (Executive
Producer) alongside star soprano Anush Hovhannisyan,
Head of Artistic Relations. The Festival is created
with the support of Princess Giorgiana Corsini and
other members of the Corsini family.

Mascarade Opera Studio

In September 2020, New Generation
Festival will offer year-round opportunity to budding
opera singers as the Festival launches an international
Mascarade Opera Studio in Florence, providing a
carefully designed high-ability nine-month training
programme for eight singers and two rÈpÈtiteurs.

The studio will provide extensive performance skills
training by expert coaches, vocal consultants,
performance specialists and internationally acclaimed
masterclass teachers, including legendary Italian
soprano Mariella Devia as Honorary
President and world-renowned English baritone Sir Thomas Allen as Honorary Patron.
The studio will be directed by Dr Ralph Strehle and the
artistic advisory board includes Claudia Assmann,
Christoph Boehmke, Susan Bullock, Jessica Cottis, Roger
Granville, Anush Hovhannisyan, Sam McShane, Jonathan
Papp, Frankie Parham, Jonathan Santagada and Carmen
Santoro. In accordance with its founding ethos,
Mascarade Opera Studio envisages to be a place where
knowledge and practices are exchanged freely.

The Mascarade Opera Studio Artists 2020
are:

  • Sopranos
    Alexandria Wreggelsworth (USA), Marianna
    Hovhannisyan (Armenia)
  • Mezzo-sopranos
    Gabriel? Kupöyt? (Lithuania), Lauren Young
    (Scotland), Xenia Tziouvaras (USA)
  • Tenor
    ¡ngel Vargas (Puerto Rico)
  • Baritone
    Thandolwenkosi Zwane (Eswatini, Swaziland), Pawe?
    Trojak (Poland)
  • RÈpÈtiteurs
    Henry Websdale (UK), Kristina Yorgova (Bulgaria)


    newgenerationfestival.org


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