Festival Illica takes place each year at Castell’Arquato, the town where Luigi Illica – creator of librettos for Giacomo Puccini, Umberto Giordano, Pietro Mascagni, Alfredo Catalani, author of Tosca, La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, Andrea Chénier, Iris, Le Maschere and La Wally – was born in 1857.
On Monday 29 July the medieval town celebretes the centenary of Illica’s death (1919-2019) with a Gala d'Opera. The evening will also feature the assignment of the XXXI Premio Luigi Illica for personalities in the field of opera and cultural life. Past winners include Riccardo Muti, Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, Franco Zeffirelli and, more recently, Leo Nucci.
The highest honor of Premio Illica, the Illica d’Oro, has been assigned this year to the Academy Award winner Ennio Morricone. The Premio Illica went to Philippe Daverio, art historian, cultural administrator and television personality, and to Marco Tutino, the most prolific Italian opera composer of the postwar era. The winning opera singers are: Aprile Millo, soprano, ‘queen’ of the Metropolitan Opera of New York for two decades, Stefano Secco, one of the Italian tenors of greatest international acclaim, and Lucio Gallo, interpreter of Mozart, Puccini and the 20th-century repertoire.
The singers, together with mezzosoprano Sarah M. Punga, will share the Gala stage with emerging voices: the sopranos Maria Luisa Malfatti and Chiara Mogini, the Egyptian tenor Ragaa El Din, the Spanish tenor Facundo Munoz and the Italian baritone Jaime Eduardo Pialli.
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