How was your year? Theresia’s remarkable things of 2022

By Emilia Campagna - December 27, 2022
How was your 2022? We hope it was stunning, surprising, and full of new and exciting projects. Like Theresia’s! We are very proud and happy about the year that’s about to end: and now that only a handful of days stand between us and the new year, we want to run through the remarkable things of 2022 together.

How was your 2022? We hope it was stunning, surprising, and full of new and exciting projects. Like Theresia’s!

Yes, we are very proud and happy about the year that’s about to end: and now that only a handful of days stand between us and the new year, we want to run through the remarkable things of 2022 together.

A year at full speed

With eight residencies (five devoted to chamber music, three to orchestral projects), we really got back to normal after the restrictions due to the Covid pandemic. Eight residencies mean an average of one every month and a half, and even if a residency lasts about a week between rehearsals and concerts, it takes a lot of preparation work, all done behind the scenes by our valuable staff led by artistic director Mario Martinoli and project manager Susanna Bucher. Congratulations on your excellent work!

New places, new friends

In 2022, we’ve been in familiar places, such as Ossiach and Geneva, but we happened also to land in new places, like Mondovì and Montecastelli, and also countries where Theresia had never performed before: like Spain! Being in Totana as part of Ecos Festival was a great experience, especially for the peculiarities of the event. Ecos Festival is devoted to music but also to sustainability and to finding new approaches to the audience, and we couldn’t help but love it

Find more in the interview with Ecos Festival’s artistic director

Performing opera in a fairy tale place

Not only opera is an exceptional event, as Theresia is devoted mainly to orchestral repertoire, but doing it in a place such as Teatro Torlonia in Rome is breathtaking! We had the chance to being part in the production of “Le astuzie femminili” by Domenico Cimarosa, organized by Reate Festival. Teatro Torlonia is a stunning little theater in the heart of a neoclassical villa set in Rome. A few people were among the privileged to attend the event: have a glimpse of it in this beautiful photogallery.

Find more about the opera production in this interview with conductor Alessandro De Marchi

Find more about Teatro Torlonia in this “Our places” series post

Not only rehearsals and concerts: the Ambassadorship project

Some may think we are never satisfied and always want to go further: that’s right! As a matter of fact, one of the remarkable things of 2022 was not a musical project – not strictly speaking, at least. Last July, we involved three Theresia’s musicians in an Ambassadorship project as part of the EU-funded project EMPOWER. Over the course of three years, the Ambassadorship project is going to involve a total of nine young musicians, representing nine different European countries, to be Ambassadors and Ambassadresses, embodying and transmitting the core values of classical music and its importance to their countries. First to participate in the initiative were Anna Krzyżak from Poland, Léna Ruisz from Hungary, and Irina Fârtat from Romania, with the task of promoting HIP in their own countries and engaging new audiences through their own and/or Theresia’s activity.

The task is not easy, and it is our job to help them, so in July we organized a co-creation workshop, involving our expert in communication and social media management: it was incredibly stimulating and inspiring. Here are some shots from the workshop:

Find more about the Ambassadorship project here.

New voices on the blog

As part of their activity, the Ambassadresses were suggested to contribute to the blog. That was a welcome breath of fresh air, with very interesting posts, from well-being to some hidden viola repertoire.

You can find all them here!

An old friend back on track

For more than 30 years, students of baroque music had looked to Eubo, the European Union Baroque Orchestra, as a reference point. But, first because of Brexit, then Covid, Eubo had ceased its activities in 2019. Now, thanks to ICONS foundations, Eubo starts its activity again: the new phase started with a concert in Ravenna, and auditions are to be announced soon! That’s great news that adds happiness to all baroque music lovers. Well done, ICONS!

Find more in this interview with President of ICONS and Founder and Artistic Director of Theresia Orchestra Mario Martinoli

Our places: Teatro di Villa Torlonia

By Emilia Campagna - October 12, 2022
It seems like we can’t help but perform in beautiful and fairytale places. And our next destination is no less. Follow us in Teatro di Villa Torlonia.

It seems like we can’t help but perform in beautiful and fairytale places. It is not that we are looking deliberately for them: maybe we are especially lucky, or we are good at seeing the beauty that surrounds us, but if you pore over the “Our places” series of blog posts, you’ll see it’s just like that. And the next destination is no less.

Thanks to Reate Festival, who invited Theresia Orchestra to stage Cimarosa’s “Le astuzie femminili” under the baton of Alessandro De Marchi (click here if you lost the interview), we will perform in a real jewel in the heart of Rome, the Villa Torlonia Theatre.

Villa Torlonia, with its magnificent neoclassical building and the surrounding gardens, was designed by the renowned architect Giuseppe Valadier on behalf of the banker Giovanni Torlonia, who lived between 1756 and 1829. The construction began in 1806 and was finished by the owner’s son Alessandro (1800–1880). It was Alessandro who decided to add a theater to the complex, starting its construction in 1847.

Not proudly, it is mainly known as having been for sixteen years the residency of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who rented it for only one lira a year – a symbolic prize that spared him the accusation of appropriating it by force. After the fall of the dictator, Villa Torlonia became the headquarters of the Anglo-American command and returned to Torlonia familiy’s possession in 1947.

Sadly, a long time of decay followed, until the entire property was bought by Rome’s Municipality in 1978. The first thing to happen was that the garden was made public and open free of charge to all. In 1991, big renovation works started: they made it possible to retrieve various buildings (besides the main one, among them you have some fascinating ones, like the “Casina delle Civette”, the “Casino dei Principi”, the “Serra Moresca”) and turn them into museum venues.

The Theater was one of the last buildings to be renovated: it was opened in 2013 after decades of abandonment.

Roma-villa torlonia01.jpg

A crumbling beauty… a glimpse to the Theater before the renovation – credit Patrick DenkerFlickr, CC BY 2.0

After the war, furniture and furnishings were subject to theft, but nobody could remove the beautiful loggias and the magnificent frescos by Costantino Brumidi, an Italian painter renowned in the US as the author of Whashington’s Capitol Palace frescos. The theater is quite small, though, as it was meant to serve a villa, so only few people will be among the lucky ones who share this special occasion of seeing a performance in such a historical place. We hope you’ll be among them! If you won’t, stay in touch on our social media channel for pictures to come.

Theresia Orchestra is performing Cimarosa’s “Le Astuzie Femminili” in Villa Torlonia’s theater on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 October (8 p.m.) More info on Reate Festival‘s website