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maltatoday | SUNDAY • 4 OCTOBER 2020 5 THIS WEEK MUSIC the Sicilian Opera Choir (Oscar della Lirica) as the best lyric and symphonic choir. It is also regularly hired abroad, specifi- cally in Europe and Asia, where for many years it has been ambassador of Vincenzo Bellini and of the Italian belcanto to the major theatres. It has collaborated with some great art- ists such as José Carreras, pop tenor An- drea Bocelli, Fiorenza Cossotto, Luciana Serra, Lucia Aliberti, Dimitra Theodos- siou, Donato Renzetti, Steven Mercurio, Daniela Dessì, Gregory Kunde, etc. It exported Franco Zeffirelli's Aida and La Traviata productions to China for the first time and performed live on live on Chinese television in front of over 1.5 bil- lion viewers. It has collaborated with some prestig- ious Italian and foreign orchestras and it has performed live on RAI, SKY, BBC channels and in cinemas all over the world. This year, challenging the restrictions of stringent health regulations - and indeed convinced that culture and beauty are a powerful weapon against all negativity and ugliness - the Sicilian Lyric Choir produced the second edition of the Opera Festival of the Stone Theatres, which was carried out under the High Patronage of the European Parliament, the Pontificium Consilium de Cultura of the Vatican City, the highest Italian institutions and the Si- cilian Region. The festival took place in the main ar- chaeological parks of Sicily - Taormina, Syracuse, Tindari - enriching itself, in the 2020 edition, with other extraordinary spaces such as the Timoleontèe Walls of Gela, the Donnafugata Castle, the Stone Courtyard of the Palazzo di Città of Avo- la, the Archaeological Park of Caltanis- setta, the Bellini Garden of Catania, the city of Vizzini and the Amphitheatre of Zafferana Etnea, for a tour of some of the most evocative Sicilian locations. The 2020 edition of the Opera Festival of the Stone Theatres was inaugurated with the Ninth Symphony in D minor op. 125 by Beethoven - on the occasion of the Beethoven celebrations for the 250th an- niversary of his birth - in co-production with the Sicilian Symphony Orchestra Foundation; it oversaw the production of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana (among the few complete representations in the world, with direction, sets and costumes), Orff's Carmina Burana, Ramirez's Misa Criolla, the Puccini-Verdi Opera Gala, the "Nessun Dorma" concert (three tenors in concert), a Lyric Gala entirely "Made in Sicily" with J. Nuccio, S. Alaimo, P. Ballo, E. Scala and two events of contamination between pop and opera with the extraor- dinary participation of Antonella Ruggie- ro and Mario Venuti, closing the first part in Vizzini on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of "Le Verghiane", events dedicated to Giovanni Verga, source for the "verist" masterpiece. The long musical festival, which inau- gurated on 24 July and ended on 26 Sep- tember, achieved great success with the public and critics, attracting the attention of the main national and international media and of the most important special- ized magazines in the sector; it touched 10 archaeological sites in as many Sicilian provinces, managing to bring almost 10 thousand spectators into the theatre in a complex moment for the live entertain- ment sector. In a frame made of grace, harmony, balance, a tribute to a great Sicilian art- ist, the unforgettable tenor Marcello Giordani, who will be remembered one year after his death on Monday 5 Octo- ber in his Augusta with the performance of the Stabat Mater by Emanuele Rincón d'Astorga (composer also of Augustan or- igins) together with a beautiful and rich lyrical and sacred repertoire, with a con- cert directed by Giovanni Ferrauto and which will be attended by numerous art- ists friends of Giordani. Finally, the Sicilian Lyric Choir has managed to create a real work of cultur- al decentralization, bringing great opera, symphonic music and chamber music romances to most of the regional terri- tory, creating - in fact - a circuit that has brought together not only the main loca- tions, known by international tourism, but also the less valued sites, equally rich in history, art and culture, eager to be ex- alted and appreciated by the wider public. A summer full of important events, cul- tural decentralization, the production of operas in complete form and in the ut- most safety that allowed the carrying out of over 20 performances in an entire mu- sical season. The birth of important collaborations that included interesting contaminations between the pop music and opera, the halls packed with an attentive and com- petent audience, the attention of national and international critics are all the factors of an extraordinary season that places the Sicilian Lyric Choir at the top of the rank- ing of organizing bodies and music com- panies at an international level, the pride of Sicily in the world. "Even the normal activities of every day become an achievement to be savored with great conviction" Cavalleria Rusticana - Taormina, 2020 CFestival Lirico 2020, Al Teatro Greco Di Siracusa