On Monday July 7th 2025 at 9 pm, the evocative Cavea del Maggio will once again open to the audience for the first event of the 2025 Summer Season.

One of Gaetano Donizetti's most famous operas, "L'elisir d'amore", on the bill.

Alessandro Bonato will be on the podium, leading the Maggio Orchestra and Chorus; the direction of the new production is entrusted to Roberto Catalano.

Two price ranges for tickets: Chairs €50 / Bleachers €30

New production in co-production with the Bolzano and Trento Haydn Foundation

Thanks to Sammontana for the ice creams

Florence, July 3rd 2025 – After the great public success achieved last summer with the staging of Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, on Monday July 7th at 9 pm the Cavea del Maggio – the hall ‘under the stars’ on the roof of the Theatre – will once again open with one of the most beloved works of Italian melodrama, “L’elisir d’amore” by Gaetano Donizetti, proposed in a new staging in co-production with the Haydn Foundation of Bolzano and Trento. From this occasion the first sector of the Cavea will be equipped with more comfortable seats. Three more performances are on the programme, all at 9 pm: 9, 11 and 14 July 2025.

“We are very happy to present an opera in scenic form again this year and then “I Carmina Burana” in the Cavea of ​​our Theater. A space for the summer that last year was equipped with a real stage and an orchestra pit and that from now on is also enriched with more comfortable seats for the audience. A beautiful open-air theater that can be frequented by citizens and by the many tourists who will visit Florence and Tuscany – underlined the superintendent Carlo Fuortes – therefore, the experience begun last summer is repeated, which had a great response from our audience. The Cavea will become in the future the place of the summer entertainment offer of our Theater, also in consideration of the pleasantness of the place and the excellent acoustics that do not require any amplification of the sound of the Orchestra, the Choir and the singers.”

On the podium, leading the Maggio Orchestra and Chorus, Maestro Alessandro Bonato; the direction of the new production is by Roberto Catalano, making his debut at the Teatro del Maggio. The Chorus Maestro is Lorenzo Fratini. The sets are by Emanuele Sinisi, the costumes by Ilaria Ariemme and the lights are by Oscar Frosio. The vocal cast is made up of Lavinia Bini in the role of Adina; Nemorino is played by Antonio Mandrillo; Hae Kang plays the role of Belcore; Roberto De Candia is Dulcamara and Aloisia de Nardis plays Giannetta.

Speaking about this new production in co-production with the Haydn Foundation of Bolzano and Trento, Alessandro Bonato – who returns to the Maggio after his symphonic debut last September – highlighted how the characters in L’elisir d’amore are all characterised in a superlative way: “L'elisir has few characters, but extremely characteristic and characterized. Among them, Nemorino is the one who turns the score towards the "pathetic": a lover, pure, sincere who, because of his virtue, among others who have no virtue, is a fish out of water, completely alien to conspiracy theories and material purposes, so much so that he is labeled with mocking and offensive epithets such as buffoon, clumsy and even half crazy. Musically, Donizetti uses extraordinary stratagems to reinforce what happens on stage and further characterize the characters. In my reading of the opera - said Bonato - I am focused on the score and the libretto, trying to go as deep as possible and understand the motivations behind what is written. I have removed, for example, some traditionally performed variants and I have worked to strictly respect the indications reported by the composer, especially regarding the continuous tempo changes within the same musical number”.

Roberto Catalano, on his debut in the theater, spoke about what can, in part, be the key to understanding Donizetti's masterpiece, and what can be the aspects that lie behind the lightness of the plot: "Adina, the protagonist of 'our' story is the woman who carries within herself an ancient wound, linked to a betrayal suffered as a child, she is a character who rejects feelings and the risk that it costs to experience them, keeping love and any danger of trusting again at a safe distance. The street artist, under the false guise of a charlatan named Dulcamara, therefore invents a stratagem to invite her (and all of working and graying humanity) to undermine rigor and seriousness through play; a magic potion that is none other than the water from the fountain in the park that everyone has always drunk".

Catalano thought of a space that would dialogue in full harmony with the Cavea of ​​the Theater and its new stage and therefore designed a contemporary urban park. Here the plot of the opera will unfold, showing right from the start, during the prelude, a young Adina playing on one of the swings in the park and who we will find shortly after, with a time jump given to the music, adult and capricious (but we will have understood why) leafing through the book where the story of the love potion drunk by Tristano that gives rise to the entire story is told.