Giuseppe Pennisi
Giuseppe Pennisi is an Italian economist addicted to opera since the age of twelve. Although he has pursued a career in government, international organizations (mostly the World Bank, where he was employed for twelve years, mainly in management positions) and universities, he has also had a parallel operatic path. He has been vice-president of the Spoleto Opera Company, and is now chairman of the Cultural Economics Committee in the Italian Ministry of Culture and Antiquities. He is also a member of the National Council on Cultural Policies. He has written nearly twenty books on economics (one in the form of an opera libretto), and reviews opera regularly for the daily paper Il Foglio, the weekly Milano Finanza, the monthly Musica and the news and comments agency Il Velino.
Music & Vision articles by Giuseppe Pennisi
Giuseppe Pennisi attended a performance of Wagner's 'Rienzi' in Rome
Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Wagner's 'Flying Dutchman' enthralls Giuseppe Pennisi
Eighteenth century Neapolitan cello concertos fascinate Giuseppe Pennisi
Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of Verdi's 'Don Carlo' in Turin
Saint-Saëns' 'Samson' as envisaged by La Fura dels Baus
Bartók and Cambodian music in Monte Carlo
Alexander Raskatov's 'A Dog's Heart'
Giuseppe Pennisi experiences Ravenna's first performance of Britten's 'The Rape of Lucretia'
Makropoulos in the Lagoon
Verdi's rarely performed 'I Due Foscari'
A shocking 'Die Walküre'
Bayreuth's 'Das Rheingold' previewed in Rome
Adolphe Adam's 'Giselle'
An evening of piano music from Giuseppe Andaloro
Verdi, Shakespeare and Macbeth's lust for power
Giuseppe Pennisi takes a sniff at Shostakovich's 'The Nose'
If 'Das Rheingold' becomes a comedy
A piano journey on the Danube
Giuseppe Pennisi discusses a sexy 'Falstaff' at La Scala
The legacy of Giacinto Scelsi twenty-five years on
Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring'
Music by Vivaldi in the churches of Rome
Minkus' 'Don Quixote' in Rome
Concerts in Rome for Peace
A sexless 'Traviata' opens San Carlo's new season in Naples
A controversial 'Lohengrin' at La Scala
'Simon Boccanegra' in Rome
Works by Sciarrino and Messiaen. '... quite eclectic ...'
Chinese National Opera's 'Turandot' on tour
Rome's new production of Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet'
Giuseppe Pennisi visits Sagra Musicale Umbra 2012
Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Spontini's recently discovered comedy 'La Fuga in Maschera'
More from this summer's Salzburg Festival
At the Salzburg Summer Festival, Giuseppe Pennisi was enthralled by Bernd Alois Zimmermann's 'Die Soldaten'
Giuseppe Pennisi reports on his week at the Rossini Opera Festival
Summer Opera in Rome
Giuseppe Pennisi describes how the Puccini Opera Festival is at a turning point
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the annual Munich Opera Festival
Giuseppe Pennisi describes how Gounod's 'Roméo et Juliette' attracts a new audience in Verona
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the 2012 Tyrol Festival for new productions of 'Lohengrin' and 'Tosca'
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the 2012 Ravenna Festival
Benjamin Britten's chamber opera 'The Turn of the Screw' opens the 55th Spoleto Festival
Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a three-day musical party near Lucca in Tuscany
Britten's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'
An Almodóvar-style 'Elisir d'Amore' from Valencia and Palermo
Giuseppe Pennisi was in Berlin for the opening night of a revival of 'The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny'
Giuseppe Pennisi reports on bel canto in Europe
Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's production of Verdi's 'Attila'
Giuseppe Pennisi was at La Scala for a new production of 'Peter Grimes'
Zemlinksy's 'Der König Kandaules'
'Der Rosenkavalier' at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, a festival with a rich programme but a dire financial situation
Giuseppe Pennisi was in Ravenna for the revival of a successful production of Handel's 'Rinaldo'
Giuseppe Pennisi describes a rather half-baked 'Barber of Seville'
Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of the new Parma-Montecarlo production of Verdi's 'Stiffelio'
Giuseppe Pennisi visits Palermo for the critical edition of Musorgsky's 'Boris Godunov'
Giuseppe Pennisi reports on the opening night of 'Die Zauberflöte' in Rome
Strauss's 'woman' on the analyst's couch
Giuseppe Pennisi reports from Naples on 'I Masnadieri' and 'Die Räuber'
Operas for reconstruction at L'Aquila
A new 'Butterfly' production in Rome
Franz Schmidt's 'The Book with Seven Seals'
A Neapolitan 'Threepenny Opera'
A shock to the normally conservative audience at Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Verdi's 'Aida' began the 2012 season at Parma's Teatro Regio, and Giuseppe Pennisi was there
Giuseppe Pennisi discovers, via Bernstein's 'Candide', why we don't live in 'the best of all possible worlds'
Giuseppe Pennisi was in eastern Sicily for the opening night of Teatro Massimo Bellini's 2012 season - a low cost but high quality 'Carmen'
Giuseppe Pennisi reports on music for the Christmas and New Year period in Italy, for children and for those who love children
On the rediscovery of the Italian symphonic tradition
Under Riccardo Muti's baton, Verdi's first Shakespearean opera inaugurates Rome's opera season
Giuseppe Pennisi reports on a controversial new production of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' which opened La Scala's 2011-12 season in Milan
Sex and power in the aftermath of a Middle Eastern war, when 'Semiramide' opens the opera season in Naples
Two concerts conducted by Antonio Pappano
Rossini at La Scala
Giuseppe Pennisi was at the opening night of the new production in Florence of Janácek's 'The Makropoulos Case'
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Verdi Festival, which is short of money but not of ideas
Teatro Real, Paris Opéra and La Scala join forces for the centenary of 'Der Rosenkavalier'
Giuseppe Pennisi reports on the Richard Strauss masterpiece co-produced by Rome's Teatro dell'Opera and the Salzburg Festival
Giuseppe Pennisi was at the first performance of Alessandro Solbiati's 'La Leggenda' in Turin, and raises the issue of the replicability of modern grand opera
Giuseppe Pennisi takes a glimpse at the Enescu Festival's Jubilee programme
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Sagra Musicale Umbra, celebrating old and new continents
Avant-garde and late romanticism at La Sagra Malatestiana
Giuseppe Pennisi reports on 'La Salustia' and 'La Serva Padrona' from the Pergolesi Festival
Contemporary music at Salzburg
Giuseppe Pennisi reports on Janácek and Strauss at the Salzburg Summer Festival
New aspects of Rossini brought to light at the 2011 Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, discussed
The 2011 Sferisterio Festival
Giuseppe Pennisi was at the 2011 Puccini Festival
Giuseppe Pennisi has mixed feelings about 'Aida' at the Baths of Caracalla
Giuseppe Pennisi reports from the 2011 Tiroler Festspiele
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the 2011 Aix-en-Provence Festival and reports on four of the six operas
Giuseppe Pennisi was at the Italian premiere in Ravenna of Mercadante's 'I Due Figaro'
A new production of Puccini's 'La bohème' at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the sophisticated music festival in a Tuscan mountain convent and stays for the full three days
Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra are currently on a world tour. Giuseppe Pennisi listens to their concert in Rome
'La Battaglia di Legnano'
'Sicilian Vespers' as conceived by Verdi
Verdi's 'Ernani' - more revolutionary than patriotic
Works by Eötvös and Bartók
Giuseppe Pennisi was at the Italian première of Bohuslav Martinu's Greek Passion
Set in the aftermath of a nuclear war, the first performance of Luca Francesconi's 'Quartett' is
Thanks to a sparkling 'Barber of Seville', Giuseppe Pennisi rediscovers the beauty of Rossini's orchestration
A very British version of Mozart's 'Die Entführung aus dem Serail' returns to Rome
Two symphony orchestras are playing Mahler in Rome
A Ferrero / Dallapiccola double bill in Modena
Handel's 'Giulio Cesare in Egitto'
A new production of Verdi's 'Nabucco' celebrates the 150th anniversary of Italy's Unification
The first Milan performance of Britten's 'Death in Venice'
Shostakovich's 'The Nose'
British humour under the Neapolitan sun, in 'L'Elisir d'Amore' in Rome and San Francisco
Marco Tutino's 'Senso'
Verdi's 'La Forza del Destino'
'Les Nuits d'Eté' from Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
William Bolcom's 'A View from the Bridge'
A fresh start for Gnecchi's 'Cassandra'
'Ariadne auf Naxos' in Paris
Dancing to Bizet's 'L'Arlésienne' and 'Carmen'
'The Merry Widow'
Puccini's 'La Fanciulla del West'
Giuseppe Pennisi was at La Scala Milan for Wagner's 'Die Walküre'
Rossini's 'Moïse et Pharaon'
Ian McEwan and Michael Berkeley's 'For You'
Two contemporary music festivals in Rome, described
Mahler's Fifth Symphony - a self-metamorphosis from grief to ecstatic energy
Mariella Devia and the Twilight of Bel Canto
Shostakovich's 'Leningrad'
Celso Albelo hits Venice as Nemorino in Donizetti's 'L'Elisir d'Amore'
The Israel Camerata Orchestra Jerusalem
Hans Werner Henze's 'Pollicino' thrills children and adults in Florence
Rossini's 'William Tell', from Rome to the BBC Proms
Giuseppe Pennisi describes the 2010 Parma Verdi Festival's stormy beginning
'Orphée' at the Roma-Europa Festival
Donizetti's last Tudor Queen returns to Rome, and Carmela Remigio enchants Giuseppe Pennisi
The new Palermo production of Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville', a casual worker in Almodóvar's Seville
Giuseppe Pennisi visits Italy's Sagra Musicale Umbra
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Sagra Musicale Malatestiana
Romabarocca Ensemble plays Carlo Rainaldi. '... they will go far in the rediscovery of Baroque music.'
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Salzburg Festival to investigate 'the downfall of the myth and the spirit of the music'
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the 2010 Rossini Opera Festival
'Juditha triumphans' at the Sferisterio Festival
The 'Glory of God' through three Verdi operas at the Sferisterio Festival 2010
Giuseppe Pennisi finds 'Madama Butterfly' at the Puccini Festival a pleasure for the ears and the eyes
'La Fanciulla del West' at the Puccini Festival
Giuseppe Pennisi files his last report from the 2010 Aix-en-Provence Festival
Oscar Strasnoy's 'Un Retour'
Stravinsky's 'Le Rossignol'
'Don Giovanni' in Aix-en-Provence, a black comedy of sex and loneliness
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Ravenna Festival
Massenet's 'Manon' returns to Rome
Shchedrin's 'Anna Karenina' and other premières at The Stars of the White Nights Festival
Mahler's Third Symphony
'Madama Butterfly' at Rome's Teatro dell'Opera
Barenboim's 'Das Rheingold' at La Scala
Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Antonio Pappano and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Giuseppe Pennisi attends the beginning of the Tiroler Festspiele 2010
Richard Strauss' 'Die Frau ohne Schatten'
Massenet's 'Werther' on the psychotherapist's couch
Operas by Zemlinsky and Puccini
Franz Schreker's 'Die Gezeichneten'
'Lulu' lands at La Scala
Sixty Leitmotives for 'Tosca'
The bicentennial 'Simon Boccanegra' in Parma
Giuseppe Pennisi has mixed feelings about La Scala's new Wagnerian production
Giuseppe Pennisi listens to Arrigo Boito's 'Mefistofele'
Tan Dun's 'The Banquet'
The current Italian season of Mozart's 'Idomeneo'
Giuseppe Pennisi tours Austria with a young Italian symphony orchestra
Giuseppe Pennisi visits the Vienna State Opera
In the 20th anniversary year of Bernstein's death, Giuseppe Pennisi writes about Italy's homage to Lenny
Bologna's Renaissance music. '... an efficient and effective local ensemble ...'
The first performance of the unabridged 'Elektra' enthralls the audience
Verdi comic operas on stage
Henze and Mahler in Rome
'Tosca' and 'Butterfly' with live electronics
Giuseppe Pennisi experiences Zeffirelli's latest 'La traviata'
Giuseppe Pennisi reports that chamber opera is alive and well
'Carmen' at La Scala
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