About
The 89th Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Festival brings the European musical tradition to Florence in a richly varied 2027 edition, combining opera, orchestral concerts, and celebrated international artists. From 18 April to 30 June, the festival unfolds at the Teatro del Maggio with a programme ranging from Baroque and Classical masterpieces to the great works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Opera takes centre stage with Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, conducted by Ivor Bolton and directed by Deborah Warner, followed by Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Alexander Soddy and directed by Keith Warner. The festival concludes its principal operatic programme with Richard Strauss’s Elektra, conducted by Music Director Daniele Gatti and directed by Stéphane Braunschweig.
The concert programme brings an exceptional line-up to Florence. On 21 April, Riccardo Muti appears on the occasion of the dedication of the Teatro del Maggio to Vittorio Gui. Yunchan Lim performs on 7 May, followed by Grigory Sokolov on 10 May, while violinist Maxim Vengerov takes the stage on 11 June. On 14 June, Kirill Petrenko conducts the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. Other highlights include a Beethoven programme with Pietari Inkinen and concerts conducted by Daniele Gatti.
The festival also offers a broad musical panorama, with works by Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mahler, Strauss, and other major composers represented across its symphonic and vocal programmes. The 2027 season includes twenty major symphonic and choral-symphonic concerts, recitals, and guest appearances, while Gatti launches a two-year cycle devoted to Bruckner’s complete symphonies.
For those seeking a sophisticated cultural escape, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino 2027 offers an appealing combination of great music and Florence itself. From Wagnerian drama and Britten’s theatrical imagination to virtuoso recitals and major orchestral events, the festival creates a distinctive musical journey through one of Europe’s most remarkable cities.
About the Festival Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is an annual Italian arts festival in Florence, including a notable opera festival, under the auspices of the Opera di Firenze. The festival occurs between late April into June annually, typically with four operas. The festival has been held in Florence since 1933. It is the oldest European opera festival (according to he is even older than the festival in Salzburg). Above all, because of its history: a Season of symphonic concerts resulted in a Festival which,in turn, resulted in the founding of a music theatre company.
In 1928 Florence created an Orchestra, a seemingly natural consequence of the growing international dimension of a city that for centuries had been devoted, like few others, to art and culture. It was a courageously elitist decision for the time and resulted, in 1933, in the first Festival of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, which followed the European tradition of presenting theatre and music together. It is now the oldest festival in Europe after Salzburg and Bayreuth.
It is for its prestigious history through the last decades that still today the Maggio, with its top-notch offering of opera and concerts, continues to be synonymous with innovation, purpose, and an interdisciplinary vision of music and performance, concerts and exhibition, and opera and seminars, which complements and perfectly embodies the vibrant culture of the unique and stunning city of Florence - a city of art, monuments and museums, and a city enriched with an incomparable, magnificent past.
For decades and over the years the greatest names in music performance have appeared at the Maggio and have established long and productive relations with the city in an ever-increasing connection between the Festival itself and all the other activities that take place throughout the year in the historic theatres of Florence as well as - and mostly - in the new venue of the Teatro del Maggio one of the most interesting European Opera Houses created and designed to offer the most innovative technical equipment and a modern, efficient and stylish auditorium with excellent acoustics to its audience.
Major chapters in the history of the Orchestra, the Chorus and the Teatro del Maggio Fiorentino, on the last 50 years are the musical directions of Riccardo Muti (1969 – 1981), and Zubin Mehta (1985 - 2017), who is now the Honorary conductor for life and, from last May 2018 of Fabio Luisi. And today, as in the past, it’s not a question of a mere parade of famous persons; each one of them has helped the Maggio audience and, by extension, all music lovers to gain greater knowledge and understanding.
