MITO SettembreMusica 2024 pays tribute to Giacomo Puccini in the year that marks the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death, with four concerts featuring masterpieces by a cluster of his European contemporaries, as well as two newly commissioned works for orchestra inspired by Puccini and his operatic characters, by present-day composers Andrea Manzoli and Roberta Vacca.

Milano’s Teatro Dal Verme, where many performances of Puccini operas have been staged, plays host to the Pomeriggi Musicali Orchestra, conducted by Alessandro Cadario, performing a new composition by Roberta Vacca that takes its cue from five of Giacomo Puccini’s greatest loves – his cigars, his punt gun, his boat, his car and his women; followed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra Op. 35, featuring soloist Anna Tifu. At Torino’s Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory, the Torino Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Giampaolo Pretto, performs Andrea Manzoli’s new composition inspired by Floria Tosca, and Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Sinfonietta Op. 23.

As prolific as Franco Alfano was, he is perhaps best known for having completed Giacomo Puccini’s unfinished opera Turandot – indeed, the rest of Alfano’s works are rarely performed today. But as we continue our tribute to Puccini, MITO SettembreMusica 2024 serves up a pair of concerts featuring an array of Alfano’s lyrical poems. This project is the brainchild of pianist Klaus Simon, who we also have to thank for his research and transcriptions of much unpublished material.

Three quartets will be lavishing listeners with still more music from the early 20th century. In Milano the Prometeo Quartet performs music by Italian heavyweights Giorgio Federico Ghedini and Alfredo Casella, along with pieces by Béla Bartók and György Ligeti. Also in Milano, the Adorno Quartet presents a program entitled American Echoes featuring string quartets by Samuel Barber, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Bernhard Herrmann and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Torino’s Teatro Vittoria hosts the Goldberg Quartet, featuring the talented young winners of the 2023 Abbiati Award, this time around performing music by Gianfrancesco Malipiero, Alfredo Casella and Ottorino Respighi. Violinist Francesca Dego and pianist Alessandro Taverna treat Milano music fans to a program that opens with compositions by Arnold Schönberg and Richard Strauss, and concludes with Violin Sonata No. 9 (also known as The Kreutzer Sonata), one of Beethoven’s most celebrated pieces of music.

Torino’s Auditorium Giovanni Agnelli, Lingotto welcomes Toni Servillo and the Milano Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gianna Fratta, for the performance of Giuseppe Montesano’s Puccini, Puccini, what do you want from me? Of this unusual monologue based on the music of Puccini, Montesano says, “The story stars a smart, refined dandy who can’t stand Puccini’s music. Then he meets a young lady and falls in love with her. Too bad she’s a huge Puccini fan who drags him to the opera. He listens, talks to himself, as the wan, romantic, erotic voices of characters like Mimì, Rodolfo and Tosca ring out.”

Manu Lalli, artistic director of the Venti Lucenti theater collective, brings us The Ice Princess, featuring the participation of 130 elementary school children from Milano and Torino, along with some 30 students from the conservatories of the festival’s host cities, conducted by Giuseppe La Malfa. This educational project is based on an abridged version of Puccini’s Turandot, curated by Enrico Minaglia for Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Performances in both Torino and Milano.