Targeted by the Italian government's nonsensical across-the-board blind cuts to the classical music sector, Pesaro's glorious Rossini Opera Festival has lost € 500,000 in public funding and has postponed to 2010 the world premiere of the critical edition of Sigismondo, that has been replaced for this year by an older Scala di Seta.
The Festival's main event luckily remains unscathed: Zelmira, a new production conducted by Roberto Abbado, with Juan Diego Florez and Kate Aldrich that opens on August 9.