The Excitement of Rossini
Maestro Renzetti loves to share his passion for music and it is hardly surprising that the exuberant music of Gioachino Rossini stands at the centre of the 2025 Festival's opening programme. Rossini was recognised as the greatest Italian composer of the 19th century and no other composer enjoyed his prestige, popular acclaim and artistic influence in the world of opera. Nicknamed the "Italian Mozart", Rossini's 39 operas sparkle with brilliant melodies that audiences found as intoxicating as champagne. For the HKAF, multiple-award-winning Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Molinari and celebrated bass-baritone Paolo Bordogna perform scintillating arias and opera duets from the composer's magnificent seria and comic operas.

Featuring an eclectic repertoire of delightful pieces, the Family Choice programme is anchored in the music of Maurice Ravel. Creating music with a distinctive French sensibility and refinement, Ravel's fascination with the past powerfully emerges in Le Tombeau de Couperin and the incomparable Pavane, while his Ma mère l'Oye (Mother Goose) Suite is undoubtedly his most famous children's work. Fabulous operatic excerpts from operas by Rossini, Puccini and Donizetti round out this enchanting programme.

Famous for their silky-smooth and effortless interpretations, Renzetti and the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna create powerful and highly entertaining soundscapes, and leave audiences breathless with their refined artistry and extraordinary musicality.