Festivals
Le Marche has an abundance of festivals which take place throughout the year and especially during the summer months when many villages have their own sagra which is a local festival usually involving food.
Village festivals in Italy typically have their origins in old country fairs or similar entertainments, but many of them now aim at visitors or even foreign tourists. Each village has a committee that organises the events for the year and often a sagra celebrates a local dish or type of food. In Le Marche you often find sagre celebrating truffles, local cheese, chestnuts, oil, wine and pasta and lots more. Check our list of coming Le Marche festivals and you can even add your own village festival to the website.
Opera
The Macerata Opera puts on performances of three or four operas each July and August under the name Sferisterio Opera Festival. The venue for the operas is the Teatro Lauro Rossi and the magnificent Sferisterio arena, a spacious columned semi-circle which allows for the seating of 3,500 to 4,500 people depending upon the specific sets. The 2009 season starts in July with Mozart's Don Giovanni in the Teatro Lauro Rossi and continues in the open-air arena with Puccini's Madame Butterfly and Verdi's La Traviata. A full programme can be found at www.sferisterio.it.
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The Rossini Opera Festival takes place in August in Pesaro the birthplace of the opera composer Gioacchino Rossini. Performances are given in the the Teatro Rossini, the modified "Palasport" sports arena and the Teatro Sperimentale (Experimental Theatre). The 2009 season runs from 9 - 20 August with the main operas hosted in the Teatro Rossini. Highlights include Rossini's Zelmira, La Scala di Seta and Le Comte Ory. A full programme can be found at www.rossinioperafestival.it. As well as a programme of classical music, dance and jazz, the Teatro delle Muse in Ancona has a strong opera season. Check the website for more details www.teatrodellemuse.org |
Watch a scene in this video of a past Pesaro Festival, with Orchestra del Comunale di Bologna conducted by Daniele Belardinelli. |
