October 2024

Italy

Music

Milano Musica Festival – Milan (October 5-28)
This festival focuses on contemporary classical music, featuring performances by international artists and orchestras at venues across Milan.
Milano Musica Official Website

Bologna Jazz Festival – Bologna (October 25 – November 5)
A major jazz festival that brings together top jazz musicians from around the world for performances in various venues across Bologna.
Bologna Jazz Festival Official Website

JAZZMI – Milan (October 12 – November 5, 2024)
This highly anticipated jazz festival takes place across various venues in Milan, including theaters, clubs, and alternative spaces. The festival features concerts, films, exhibitions, and workshops, making Milan a hub for jazz enthusiasts during this period.
JAZZMI Official Website

Opera

Rossini Opera Festival – Pesaro – (February 24th to November 16th 2024)
www.rossinioperafestival.it

Festival Verdi – Parma and Busseto (September 21 – October 21)
This festival is dedicated to the works of Giuseppe Verdi, featuring performances of operas like Macbeth and La Battaglia di Legnano at iconic venues such as Teatro Regio di Parma and Teatro Giuseppe Verdi di Busseto. The festival also includes concerts, installations, and performances by renowned orchestras and soloists
Specific Performances:
○      Macbeth at Teatro Regio di Parma (October 6, 13, 17)
○      Un Ballo in Maschera at Teatro Giuseppe Verdi di Busseto (October 5, 12, 18)

Teatro Regio di Parma

Festival Verdi Official Website

La Traviata – Teatro alla Scala, Milan (October 1-15)
One of Verdi’s most famous operas, performed at the prestigious Teatro alla Scala.
Teatro alla Scala Official Website

Teatro Massimo – Palermo
Specific Performances: Teatro Massimo Official Website
○      Elisabetta, Regina d’Inghilterra by Gioachino Rossini
Dates:October 22-29, 2024
This opera tells the story of Queen Elizabeth I and is one of Rossini’s less frequently performed works.
○      Peter Pan – Ballet
Dates: October 6, 2024
A ballet performance inspired by the classic tale of Peter Pan.
○      Carlo Amleto
Dates: October 18, 2024
A special concert performance at Teatro Massimo

Opera at Teatro San Carlo – Naples
Specific Performances: Teatro di San Carlo Official Website
○      Elektra by Richard Strauss
Dates: September 27 – October 3, 2024
A powerful opera by Richard Strauss, Elektra is known for its intense drama and exceptional musical composition.
○      Simon Boccanegra by Giuseppe Verdi
Dates: October 11-13, 2024
Verdi’s political drama unfolds on stage with rich melodies and complex characters, offering a deep dive into power and redemption.
○      Carmen by Georges Bizet
Dates: October 25 – November 3, 2024
Bizet’s iconic opera, filled with passion and drama, will be performed in this historic venue, bringing to life the tragic story of Carmen

Cinema

Festa del Cinema di Roma (Oct 16- Oct 27, 2024)
The Festival will take place at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, which will host the main screening theatres and the extensive red carpet, one of the largest in the world. The programme will also involve other locations and cultural entities of the Capital city.
www.romacinemafest.it/en/rome-film-fest/

Trieste Science Fiction Festival – 60th Anniversary Edition
Trieste (Oct. 29 -Nov. 3)
Trieste Science+Fiction Festival is a multidisciplinary event devoted to the exploration of the realms of the ‘fantastic’ genre, and the use of new technologies and experimental languages in film, television and visual arts. The main purpose of Trieste Science+Fiction Festival is to present and promote, in Italy and in its neighboring countries, ‘fantastic’ productions from all over the world, focusing particularly on science fiction and fantasy cinematographic and audio-visual works.
www.sciencefictionfestival.org/en

Theater and Dance

Romaeuropa Festival – Rome (September 4 – November 17, 2024)
An international festival showcasing innovative theater performances, contemporary drama, and multimedia works across various venues in Rome.
Romaeuropa Festival Official Website

Teatro Regio Torino – Turin (October 5-12,2024 )
Giselle
This timeless ballet is a cornerstone of the classical ballet repertoire and is presented with stunning choreography and orchestral support.
Teatro Regio Torino Official Website

MilanoOltre Festival – Milan (September 27 – October 14,2024)
Specific Performances: MilanoOltre Festival Official Website
○      The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, reimagined in contemporary dance (October 2-4)
○      Medea by Euripides, performed as a multi-media theater piece (October 10-12)

Art

Venezia Biennale Arte 2024 – Venezia ( April 20-November 24)The international Exhibition is on display in the Central Pavilion at Giardini and at the Arsenale, divided into two distinct sections: Nucleo Contemporaneo and Nucleo Storico. The Exhibition also includes 86 National Participations in the historic Pavilions at the Giardini, at the Arsenale and in the city centre of Venice. Four countries participate for the first time at the Biennale Arte: Republic of Benin, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Timor Leste, and United Republic of Tanzania.
www.labiennale.org/en/art/2024

William De Kooning L’Italia – Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, ( April 17 -September 15 )
https://www.gallerieaccademia.it/willem-de-kooning-e-litalia

Penelope – Parco Archeologico – Rome
(Sept 19 – Juan. 12, 2024)
The Colosseum Archaeological Park promotes the exhibition Penelope , curated by Alessandra Sarchi and Claudio Franzoni, organized by Electa.
Opened in the spaces of the Farnese Aviaries and the Temple of Romulus , the exhibition – through approximately fifty works  – retraces the myth and fortune of the figure of Penelope which has come down to us, from the remote age in which the Homeric poems date back, through two equally powerful traditions: the literary one and the one linked to visual representation. Her character has spanned the millennia and populated our imagination, linking it to a normative ideal of a woman , faithful to her husband Ulysses and wise guardian of her palace-home in Ithaca, obedient even to her son Telemachus, who was just twenty years old.  But what makes her fascinating are her determination, her resistance and her ability to dream.
www.colosseo.it/evento/penelope/

“Oliviero Toscani: photographer by profession”– Marina di Bibbona – Livorno ( December 2023 – November 1st 2024)
(Andy Warhol with Polaroid , 1975 by Oliviero Toscani )
At the Forte dei Cavalleggeri in Marina di Bibbona, over 100 shots by Oliviero Toscani , the revolutionary Italian photographer, are on display. The over 60-year career of the man who changed the way of talking about social problems in Italy is retraced through his ironic, funny, crude and shocking photographs. Images that have brought the most controversial current issues before the eyes of public opinion: the photo of an AIDS patient, the famous advertising campaign “Whoever loves me, follows me” for Jesus Jeans, the kiss between a priest and a nun. And again, the shots that recall racism, the death penalty, war, violence, anorexia.Also on display are portraits of the world’s most famous top models, iconic rock stars such as Mick Jagger and Lou Reed portrayed in the 70s, or a very young Patti Smith fresh from moving to New York.
One room is dedicated to the Razza Umana project , with which Oliviero Toscani has traveled hundreds of squares around the world to photograph anyone who wanted to, giving life to the largest existing photographic archive on the morphological and social differences of humanity.

Botero at Palazzo Bonaparte, Rome (September 17, 2024 – January 19, 2025)
On the occasion of the Jubilee, from 17 September 2024 to 19 January 2025, Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome will host a major exhibition dedicated to the recently deceased Colombian artist Fernando Botero .With paintings, watercolours, sculptures and some unpublished works , the exhibition at Palazzo Bonaparte, entirely dedicated to Botero, is the most complete ever exhibited in the capital. Through medium and large-sized works with three-dimensional effects and often bright colours to represent the sumptuous roundness of the artist’s feminine universe, it is anything but synonymous with sensuality or naive  aesthetics ; what Bolero represents is not reality in itself, but covered in a patina of hyper-realist ambiguity.

Antonio Ligabue , Bologna – Palazzo Pallavicini (October 3rd -February 28 , 2025 ) and Palazzo Albergati ( September 21 , 2024 – March 30 , 2025)
From October 3, 2024, to February 28, 2025, the rooms of Palazzo Pallavicini will host, for the first time ever in Bologna, an exhibition dedicated to Antonio Ligabue, a great Italian Expressionist painter (Zurich, December 18, 1899 – Gualtieri, May 27, 1965).
The exhibition, divided into 7 rooms of Palazzo Pallavicini in Bologna, will depict the life, psyche, and troubled history of this fascinating artist through over 120 works (including 81 paintings, 14 sculptures, 17 drawings, and 15 prints).
On display, in a retrospective of his career, are some of his most beautiful masterpieces, including 12 self-portraits and 7 tigers with gaping jaws, as well as agile leopards, raptors hunting prey or fighting for survival, and powerful lions: a true, raw, and violent jungle. www.palazzopallavicini.com

From September 21, 2024, Palazzo Albergati will host for the first time in Bologna the most important exhibition ever held on Antonio Ligabue (Zurich Dec.12th -Gualtiero May 17th) one of the most popular and exciting Italian artists of the 20th century.
The exhibition will feature 100 works and an unpublished album of drawings, which will guide visitors to discover a man with a tormented life and marginalized by society, but always in search of social redemption both as an individual and as an artist.
Www.palazzoalbergati.com

Helen Frankenthaler -Palazzo Strozzi -Florence (Sept 27, 2024 through Jan 26, 2025 )
Palazzo Strozzi presents Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules, a major exhibition dedicated to one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. Together with a wide selection of works produced between 1953 and 2002 from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation and on loan from important museums and private collections, the exhibition will allow us to discover the artist’s connections, influences and friendships.

PICASSO LO STRANIERO Palazzo Reale -Milanob( Sept. 20 – Feb.2 , 2024)
Palazzo Reale presents one of the greatest artists of all time from an unusual point of view, through artistic, political and current affairs themes.

Baths of Caracalla Rome, ( May 15th- November 3rd, 2024)
Photography in the Mirror  is the title of the exhibition project that features shots by 35 great masters such as Simon Annand, Eve Arnold, Gian Paolo Barbieri, Cecil Beaton, Ilse Bing, Claude Cahun, Robert Capa, Lisetta Carmi, Mat Collishaw, Bruce Davidson, Robert Doisneau, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Burt Glinn, Guido Harari, Florence Henri, Frank Horvat, David James, Richard Kalvar, Astrid Kirchner, Hiroji Kubota, Herbert List, Giorgio Lotti, Fabio Lovino, René Maltête, Fosco Maraini, Simone Martinetto, Duane Michals, Inge Morath, Philippe Morillon, Helmut Newton, Guido Rey, Steve Schapiro, Ferdinando Scianna, Jeanloup Sieff and Wanda Wulz.

Food and Wine

Eurochocolate Festival – Perugia (October 11-20, 2024)
This annual festival is a must for chocolate lovers, transforming Perugia into a hub of chocolate-themed activities, tastings, and workshops.
Eurochocolate Official Website

Fiera Internazionale del Tartufo Bianco d’Alba – Alba, Piedmont (Weekends in October)
One of Italy’s most famous food festivals, dedicated to the white truffle. The event features truffle hunts, gourmet food tastings, and culinary events.
Fiera del Tartufo Official Website

Boccaccesca Food and Wine Festival – Certaldo, Tuscany (October 4-6)
A festival celebrating Tuscan food and wine, with street food, tastings, and cooking demonstrations in the medieval town of Certaldo.
Boccaccesca Official Website

Fiera del Riso – Isola della Scala, Verona (October 2-27)
Italy’s largest rice fair, celebrating the Vialone Nano rice with risotto tastings, cooking demonstrations, and other local products.
Fiera del Riso Official Website