The surprise of the traditional appointment with the New Year's Concert at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice was the homage to seventy years of Italian television, which as usual was broadcast live by Rai Cultura on Rai 1. The twenty-first was directed edition of the prestigious event maestro Fabio Luisi, leading the Orchestra and Choir of the Fenice. The concert once again won over the audience, who gave ovations and standing ovations in particular to the tenor Fabio Sartori and the soprano Eleonora Buratto.
The historic anniversary of 3 January 1954, the day Rai broadcasts began, was celebrated with a medley of the most famous theme tunes on the television schedule: from “William Tell” by Gioacchino Rossini which marked the start of the programs to the Eurovision soundtrack , passing through the music that has become iconic of Tg1, of Carosello, of Che tempo fa, the first meteorological format presented by Colonel Edmondo Bernacca, of the show Studio Uno and of the dramas Pinocchio and Gian Burrasca. At the end of the tribute to TV, the cry “Long live Rai” rose from the stages amidst applause. The centenary of the death of Giacomo Puccini (29 November 1924) and the 100 years of the beginning of Italian radio broadcasts (6 October 1924) also had their own homage in the show.
The musical program of the New Year's Concert was made up of two parts: an exclusively orchestral premiere with the performance of Symphony no. 2 in D major op. 73 by Johannes Brahms, and a second dedicated to melodrama, with a series of arias from the most beloved operatic repertoire, sung by the tenor Sartori and the soprano, which ended, to the jubilation of the spectators, with “Va, pensiero, sull' golden wings” from Nabucco and with the toast “Libiam ne' pleased glasses” from Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. At the end, more than five minutes of applause convinced the artists to give an encore of the famous toast. “From this wonderful theater we wish to send Italy our best wishes for 2024, so that it may be a new year full of health, joy and beauty and above all lots of music”, said maestro Fabio Luisi.
The program of the New Year's Concert proposed a series of much-loved pieces from the operatic repertoire by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and Amilcare Ponchielli and began with the Verdian chorus taken from Due Foscari “To joy… The wind is silent, the wave is quiet “. Following the orchestral interlude from Puccini's Manon Lescaut served as an introduction to two very famous pages from Puccini's Tosca, performed respectively by the tenor Fabio Sartori and the soprano Eleonora Buratto: “E lucean le stelle” and “Vissi d'arte”. The La Fenice Theater Choir was the protagonist in the piece from Verdi's Traviata “Di Madride noi siam mattadori”.
Also in the lineup are the great classics of the melodramatic repertoire: Puccini's chorus with mouth closed and “Un bel dì visto” from Madama Butterfly and “Nessun dorma” from Turandot were performed; by Ponchielli the splendid “Dance of the Hours” from the Mona Lisa.
The superintendent Fortunato Ortombina and the mayor Luigi Brugnaro welcomed the guests to the theater. With them on the central stage the Austrian ambassador to Italy, Jan Kichert, nephew, among other things, of a cellist of the Wiener Philarmoniker who played in the first editions of the Vienna New Year's Concert. “Today the ambassador is rooting for our New Year's Concert in Venice and not for the one in Vienna,” joked the mayor. Kichert complimented the “beautiful show” he witnessed. Before the start of the concert, mayor Brugnaro, together with the superintendent Ortombina, wanted to greet the theater workers, thanking them for the excellent work done.
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