OPERA 2026
NAPOLI MILIONARIA
Nino Rota
June 12 | 13* | 14 | 16* | 17Communale Nouveau
Lyric opera in three acts
Librettist Eduardo De Filippo
Based on the play of the same name
A mock wake staged to deceive the law. It could be a scene from Gianni Schicchi, you laugh, you even laugh a lot. Then, suddenly, the bombs: everything changes and a comprimario, one of those characters we had barely noticed giving color to a scene, comes back to the fore announcing that his wife is dead under the rubble. The false and the true. This is how the first act of Napoli milionaria closes: opera buffa and tragedy, the art of making do that becomes playful farce and history that bursts in violent and ruthless. A world is encapsulated in this second collaboration (1977) between Eduardo De Filippo and Nino Rota (the first had been the 1959 fairy tale Uno scoiattolo in gamba), which would also be the composer’s last work.
The Jovine family and the microcosm of the Neapolitan lowlands are struggling for survival amid the last fires of fascism, World War II, and the euphorias and contradictions of the postwar period. Rota’s music fits like a glove to the facets of the bitter comedy, nonchalantly mastering different languages, registers and moods. De Filippo rewrites his own text, showing himself to be a librettist in his own right, and Napoli milionaria! is a true masterpiece of 20th-century melodrama, a work written with the wisdom proper to the true greats, with a depth of thought and language placed at the service of the theater, of a hopeless tale, very harsh, yet multifaceted even amid smiles, ironies and sweetness.
New production of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Orchestra, Chorus and Technicians of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Choirmaster Gea Garatti Ansini
Characters and performers
ERRICO “SETTEBELLIZZE”
Matthew Falcier/Kazuki Yoshida*
PEPPE O’CRICCO
Julius Iermini
FEDERICO
Michael Patti
RICCARDO SPASIANO
Liparit Avetisyan
GENNARO JOVINE
Paolo Bordogna/Bruno Taddia*
AMALIA
Carmen Giannattasio/Laura Stella*
MARIA ROSARIA
Mariam Battistelli/Claudia Ceraulo*
AMEDEO
Marco Miglietta
BRIGADIER CIAPPA
Yuri Guerra
ADELAIDE SCHIANO
Benedetta Mazzetto
ASSUNTA
Eleonora Filipponi
Creative team
SCENE
Diego Siliano
COSTUMES
Luciana Gutman
LIGHTS
Marcelo Lombardero
Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Jun 12 | H 20:00 – PRIME
Jun 13 | 18:00 – AFTERNOON 1
Jun 14 | H 16:00 – SUNDAY
Jun 16 | 18:00 – AFTERNOON 2
Jun 17 | H 20:00 – EVENING
Act 1: 40min.
Intermission: 25min.
Act 2: 40min.
Intermission: 25min.
Act 3: 45min.
2h55min.
Tickets at €10 for all students enrolled at the University of Bologna, the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna and the G.B. Martini Conservatory of Music for the performances of the Opera Season 2026.
On sale only during Ticket Office presale hours (Tuesday to Friday from 12 to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.), from one month before the Premiere, by presenting university badge and self-certification of enrollment for the current year.
45 min. before the start of the performance, the audience is invited to an in-depth discussion of the work by Luca Baccolini, which will be held in the Foyer of the Comunale Nouveau.
Luca Baccolini
Journalist, music popularizer and writer, he works with the Bologna editorial office of Repubblica and is on the editorial staff of the monthly Classic Voice. For Newton Compton he has published ten books on the history of Bologna. He is the author of theatrical subjects and collaborates as an essayist and popularizer with the most important Italian lyrical symphonic institutions.
This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)



