 Gioachino
Antonio Rossini was a foreign associate of the Institute besides
holding the post of Grand Officer of the region of Honour with many
other prestigious accolades attached to his name. When the renowned
composer Richard Wagner visited him in 1860, Wagner
recorded their dynamic conversation in his essay, 'Eine
Erinnerung an Rossini', ('A Memory of Rossini'). The 1950s
saw a revival of his operas at festivals and received wide acclaim.
After his death, Giuseppe Verdi composed 'Libera
me' in an attempt to assemble a Requiem in honour of Rossini, the
master opera composer and conductor. The Requiem for Rossini was
however premiered by Helmuth Rilling as the complete
'Messa per Rossini'(1988) in Stuttgart.
 The
entire music world impressed by the unique musical personality of
Rossini deemed his work as a national artistic heritage. In August
1993, the Italian Parliament passed a special law to include the
Rossini Opera Festival amongst the state-supervised
restorers of national artistic legacies. Originally established
by the Pesaro Town Council in 1980, the Rossini Opera Festival was
integrated as an international operatic event in a unanimous decision
by the Italian Parliament. With the aim of reviving and restoring
Rossini's great contribution to the operatic world, the festival
has been legally denominated a non-profit trust by a group of public
and private founders: the Pesaro Town and County Councils, the Banca
delle Marche and Banca Popolare dell'Adriatico
trusts and the Scavolini trust.
The Rossini Opera Festival has been working towards restoring Rossini's
work as a musical heritage with the formula of "musicology
applied to theatrical performance". The Festival has produced
prestigious works of Rossini with prominent artists. The Festival
uses four theatrical venues: The Teatro Rossini
(950 seats), The Palafestival (1,500-1,700 seats),
The Teatro Sperimentale (650 seats, restored in
1994), and the historical Auditorium Pedrotti (750
seats, rebuilt in 1995). The Festival has also been a member of
the European Festival Association since 1986. The
Festival at Pesaro showcases an annual festival in honour of its
most famous son, Gioachino Antonio Rossini.
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