Orchestra della Toscana – Christmas Concert 2023 – Diego Ceretta & Erica Piccotti

About the Event

Experience classical music like never before in this astonishing performance of masterworks by Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Dvorak at Florence's remarkable Teatro Verdi.

Erica Piccotti and Diego Ceretta, principal conductor of the ORT as of this season, are almost the same age. They represent the ‘best of Italian musical youth’, that generation of twenty‐year‐olds who are making their way onto international billboards through merit, study and tenacity. Erica is now perfecting herself in Germany, after a period spent in Bern, where she arrived after having trained at the Conservatory of Rome, the Stauffer Academy in Cremona and the Chigiana in Siena. After all, she is proud of her nation, and Italy is very supportive of her as evidenced by the honorary title of “Alfiere della Repubblica” (an honorary title awarded for merit in fields of culture, science, art, sports and volunteering), “for the exceptional results she obtained in the field of music at a young age”, conferred on her by President Giorgio Napolitano. With the ORT, she plays Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, a score both loved and feared by cellists, as it challenges their technical ability. Here Tchaikovsky, at the end of the 19th century, turned nostalgically back to the previous century, identified with Mozart. He is the composer that we find at the opening of the concert with his Divertimento for String Orchestra K.136: a short work composed in 1772, at the age of sixteen, in a simple, crystalline style, in the Italian manner. The programme ends with Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8.

Teatro Verdi

Teatro Verdi is a theatre established in Florence in 1854, in the street 'Via Giuseppe Verdi'. Originally known as Teatro Pagliano, the theatre became one of the most popular theatres in Tuscany, welcoming all kinds of shows, as well as classical performances with the arrival of the Orchestra della Toscana. The largest Italian‐style theatre in the region, the building was inaugurated with a performance of Verdi´s masterpiece, 'Rigoletto', and was renamed in 1901 to honour the composer. Home to the Orchestra della Toscana, the theatre now combines a vivid classical program with theatre seasons, as well as rock and pop performances..