The Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale of the RAI will be the new main orchestra of the Rossini Opera Festival. The ensemble, formed in 1994, is based in Turin where it holds regular seasons of symphonic music, chamber music and contemporary music in the “Arturo Toscanini” auditorium of the RAI.  Besides touring the leading international theaters and festivals, it performs regularly in Italy, and also appears on the RAI radio and television channels, such as Rai5 and Radio3, as well as on the Euroradio and Eurovision circuits and in streaming.

The OSN Rai will be bound to the ROF by a triennial partnership that will extend from 2017 into 2019.  The Sovrintendente of the Rai Orchestra, Paola Carruba, introduces the agreement with these words: “We are particularly happy in this new collaboration with one of the most prestigious Italian and international festivals. Our involvement originally began with a few concerts to take place in 2018 and 2019.  More recently the opportunity came up for our participating in the ROF itself beginning with this year, and as its main orchestra. And so a new agreement was reached for a project that will be developed over the course of several years. The Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai is noted for its versatility, allowing it to pass easily from the main symphonic repertory to contemporary music, lending itself also to chamber music and, naturally, to opera, which we regularly present in our seasons, or on special occasions such as La traviata in Paris, Rigoletto in Mantua and La Cenerentola in Turin, all broadcast live in mondovisione. Therefore, the Rossini Opera Festival represents a new and important opportunity for us to test ourselves in the operatic repertory and in the works of a composer who, together with the singing voices, brings the role of the orchestra into high relief.  Besides the operas, each year the OSN Rai will be required to interpret Rossini’s great choral works, beginning with the Stabat Mater that will bring this year’s festival to an end.

The General Administrator of the Festival, Gianfranco Mariotti, declares: “We are highly satisfied with the new agreement with one of the most important Italian orchestras on an international level, and we are particularly so because of the strategic implication that both we and the Rai give to the fact that the agreement covers three years.  In this way we start off from a solid base of clearly defined shared objectives. In the 2017 ROF the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai will take part in three productions: the first performance ever of the critical edition of  Le siège de Corinthe, conducted by Roberto Abbado and produced by La Fura dels Baus, which will open the Festival on August 10^th; La pietra del paragon, a revival of the ROF 2002 production conducted by Daniele Rustioni and directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi, opening on August 11^th ; and the Stabat Mater concluding the Festival on the 22^nd of August, this too conducted by Daniele Rustioni.”