The New Year's Concert of the Teatro La Fenice in Venice or Venice New Year's Concert is a traditional concert started in 2004 which takes place on 1 January of each year at the

Teatro La Fenice Teatro La Fenice (, "The Phoenix") is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre" and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice beca ...

History

The New Year's Concert from the

of Venice was born as the closing event for the commemorations of the reconstruction of the theater following the arson that destroyed it on the evening of January 29, 1996. The idea came to Anna Elena Averardi, consultant for the care of the image of the Venetian theater and was welcomed by Fabrizio Del Noce, director of

Rai 1 Rai 1 () is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It is the company's flagship television channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream and general ...

. Similar to the

Vienna New Year's Concert The Vienna New Year's Concert () is an annual concert of classical music performed by the Vienna Philharmonic on the morning of New Year's Day in Vienna, Austria. The concert occurs at the Musikverein at 11:15. The orchestra performs the same c ...

, the January 1 concert in Venice can be collocated in a series of five identical concerts held on December 28 and 29 at 8pm, December 30 at 5pm, on 31 December at 16:00. It starts 11:15 AM, and is broadcast worldwide live from 12.20 by

. The music critic Pietro Acquafredda collaborated on the formulation of the concert program, from 2004 to 2014, commissioned by Rai 1. The 2011 edition was dedicated to the 150th anniversary of Italian Independence (for the occasion the Italian anthem was played), while the 2013 edition was dedicated, in the opera section of the concert, to the music of

Giuseppe Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...

to celebrate the bicentenary of his birth.

Orchestra Directors

Structure

The concert program includes the performance of symphonies, symphonic arias and opera pieces. The concert consists of two parts: a first one that presents symphonic pieces or, in any case, only music interpreted by the orchestra, and a second one that focuses mainly on lyric opera pieces, where there are also solo singers and the theater choir. Traditionally it ends with the execution of two non-programmed fixed pieces: the first is the chorus of the '' Va, Pensiero '' from ''

Nabucco ''Nabucco'' (, short for Nabucodonosor ; en, " Nebuchadnezzar") is an Italian-language opera in four acts composed in 1841 by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The libretto is based on the biblical books of 2 Kings, ...

'' by

and the second is the famous toast of the '' Libiamo ne'lieti calici'' taken from ''

Traviata ''La traviata'' (; ''The Fallen Woman'') is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on ''La Dame aux camélias'' (1852), a play by Alexandre Dumas ''fils'' adapted from his own 18 ...

'', always by Verdi.

Television broadcasting

Only the second part of the concert, that is dedicated to the opera, is broadcast live on

, and from 2014 on

Rai 5 Rai 5 (pronounced ''Rai Cinque'') is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It was launched on 26 November 2010 replacing Rai Extra. Its programming deals ...

in the evening. The concert is also broadcast in France, Germany, Japan and Latin America. From 2016 the concert has been proposed on

ARTE Arte (; (), sometimes stylized in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European public service channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based European Economic Interest Grouping ARTE, plus ...

, ZDR, WSR,

Radio France Radio France is the French national public radio broadcaster. Stations Radio France offers seven national networks: *France Inter — Radio France's "generalist" station, featuring entertaining and informative talk mixed with a wide variety of ...

and by various radio and television broadcasters from Eastern European countries. The concert is generally broadcast entirely on Rai 5 a month later.

References

External links

{{Portal bar, Music Classical music concerts New Year celebrations Annual events in Venice 2004 establishments in Italy January events Recurring events established in 2004