As of 8'o clock this morning, tickets for the MITO SettembreMusica 2008 Festival went on sale to the public, and OC snatched up hers like a caffeinated bunny! We blogged about it last month when the details were released, but are even more impressed leafing through the official program (which is here, a pdf file, in both English and Italian).
MITO 2008, in its second year, is held in September as a month-long classical (and a bit of jazz) music festival of over 200 concerts held mainly in Torino and Milan, but also appearing in smaller cities such as Bergamo, Cremona, and Pavia. The festival kicks off September 1st @ La Scala with the Concertgebouw
Orchestra conducted by Mariss Jansons (for Debussy's La mer, Mussorgsky's Ravel-arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition, and Messiaen's Hymn to the Holy Sacrament) and ends September 25th in a fiery bukkake of events. Throughout the month, we'll see the likes of Sir Colin Davis, Valerij Gergiev, Franz Welser-Most conducting classic and rare works, such as Ockeghem's Requiem (in memory of Karlheinz Stockhausen). We also have Jacopo Per's
Euridice, Harrison Birtwistle's The Last Supper, and George Benjamin's Into
the Little Hill. Personally, we're looking forward to the Cecilia Bartoli recital on September 23rd
in Torino...and as of a few hours ago, there were still a few precious
tickets. We can't miss Jansons, of course, who's solidly in Opera Chic's chart of the Top 5 conductors working today, and our main man Ollie Knussen will be bustin' some serious Stockhausen, and we've got to be there -- thankfully, prices are
amazingly cheap, with loads of free performances held in various venues of churches, exhibition spaces, and theaters. What's left of tickets can be found at vivaticket or the MITO website. Of course, OC will be there -- you won't -- and she'll bring you the best of it all, with firsthand accounts, starting with Jansons at la Scala.