2025 SYMPHONIC SEASON – TEATRO G. VERDI, TRIESTE
From 11 September to 23 December 2025
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NOTICE! The bass role in the 8th symphonic concert – G. Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle, December 23 – will be performed by DAVIDE GIANGREGORIO.
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8th Concert
Tuesday 23 December 2025 – 7:30 p.m.
Conductor GIULIO PRANDI
Soprano ALINA TKACHUK
Mezzosoprano MICHELA GUARRERA
Tenor CHUAN WANG
Bass ALESSANDRO RAVASIO
GIOACHINO ROSSINI
Petite Messe Solennelle
For Soloists, Choir and Orchestra
CHOIR MASTER PAOLO LONGO
ORCHESTRA AND CHOIR OF THE FONDAZIONE TEATRO LIRICO GIUSEPPE VERDI, TRIESTE
A significant conclusion to the Symphonic Season with Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, crowning a month that appears wholly dedicated to him: from the great success of The Barber of Seville, which opened the Opera Season, to this final “Péché de vieillesse”, as Rossini wryly referred to his late works. On the podium, leading the Theatre’s Choir and Orchestra, stands Giulio Prandi, a firmly established name in Trieste and a specialist in repertoire ranging from early music to the dawn of Romanticism.
The last of his celebrated Péchés de vieillesse, the Petite Messe Solennelle was performed posthumously in Paris and further crowned by a farewell letter addressed to the Good Lord. With its reduced forces, the choral discipline demanded of the soloists, the reference to the Cenacle of the Twelve Apostles embedded in the performance requirements set out on the title page in Rossini’s own hand, and its evocation of an original simplicity, the work emerges as an ideal introduction, on the day before Christmas Eve, to a time of quiet, inward reflection in the days leading up to Christmas in the city of Trieste. It also marks the ideal close of a highly successful Symphonic Season, reflected in strong audience attendance and growing subscription numbers, and in its significant opening with Fedeli d’Amore for GO!2025, a commission by the Teatro Verdi of Trieste to Giorgio Battistelli, conceived as a new opera giving musical form to the culture and thought of the region. It also serves as the perfect conclusion to a December so strongly shaped by Rossini’s theatrical flair, from Le Nozze di Figaro to the Petite Messe Solennelle itself—so deeply marked by the composer’s instinct for the stage that it once drew fierce criticism from purists of sacred music. On the podium is Giulio Prandi, an Italian leading figure in early and Baroque music. The solo cast includes the young Ukrainian soprano Alina Tkachuk, highly accomplished in the Rossini and Bellini repertoire; the outstanding mezzo-soprano Michela Guarrera, who after Trieste will appear at the Rome Opera in Ariadne auf Naxos; the emerging Chinese tenor Chuan Wang, trained at the Milan Conservatory and the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala, where he has already performed in Madina, The Barber of Seville and La Cenerentola; and, finally, the excellent bass Alessandro Ravasio, who after Trieste will perform at the Theater an der Wien in Austria.