The Donizetti connection is to Bergamo what Gaudí is to the Barcelona of the tourist boom, with the exception that the surroundings of the birthplace of the composer of L'elisir d'amore, in the walled Città Alta declared heritage in 2017 of humanity, they could not under any circumstances be filled with souvenir shops of bread soaked in oil, as is the case in the streets surrounding the Sagrada Família.
In Gaetano Donizetti's paradise, passers-by do not find Milan shirts (the team with the most fans in Bergamo, along with Atalanta himself) hanging from the bars of shops, or trinkets with the portrait of the legendary bel canto creator than with Rossini and Bellini dominated the operatic scene until the emergence of Verdi. Unlike Barcelona, which was once "of design", good taste does not seem to be at odds with the infinite potential that Bergamo has as a center for cultural tourism, quality tourism.
Every autumn, the Donizetti Festival, which has been artistically directed by maestro Riccardo Frizza for the past five years - a great reference in Italian opera and a frequent member of the Liceu orchestra - attracts, over the course of almost a month, visitors interested mainly in opera, but also in the Bergamo experience.
"It's not just Donizetti fans who join, it's a bit more global. Walking through Bergamo you feel the fascination that the artist himself must have had, who, unlike other composers (then nomadic figures who no longer returned to their place of origin), decided to return to die here, to a locality that, all and being small, it has the majestic aura of a big city, with two important theaters, the monumentality of the walls and those palaces..., in one of which he died of syphilis, taken in by the Scotti family".
Barcelona singers' agent Aleix Palau describes in situ the experience under a sun that softens the cold of the nearby Alps. The music journalist, too, has faithfully attended Donizetti's operas for the past twelve years. This time he has seen three productions with peculiar titles, such as Il diluvio universale, which the author of the Tudor trilogy composed in 1930. The assembly already begins at the entrance of the Donizetti theater, in the frequented and more cosmopolitan Città Bassa, with a performance that welcomes the public by evoking the biblical episode and at the same time appealing to the health of the planet.
The staging will fail, but Frizza, who musically has taken the festival to a higher stage and is a demand for singers, will shine in the orchestra. And the cast will receive the warmth of a militant audience. Then, under the exposed beams of the Teatro Sociale from 1808, with exuberant acoustics, a French version takes place in the Città Alta, Lucie de Lammermoor ... And as every autumn the title composed by the master 200 years ago is staged years, in this case Alfredo il Grande, about the King of Wessex, whose autograph handwritten score is in the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella, in Naples. The assembly is not so forgettable this time, but the singers are especially celebrated. The public, crazy, gives them bouquets of flowers like a torpedo: the louder, the more successful the artist has been.
Today's Bergamo, with its strong musical tradition, has not changed so much in terms of Donizetti's, which experienced its evolution and foreboding. At the entrance, it has the special light of elevated cities, which also have those that kiss the sea. Whether there is sun, clouds or that fog that you wake up to every day, in Bergamo the fascination of that unique light remains. And on a heritage scale it has remained true to its essence, with the six kilometers of medieval Venetian walls, the impressive cathedral of Saint Alessandro, where the remains of the composer are, the Accademia Carrara..., even the Donizetti Museum, a room with objects and manuscripts, manages to transport an era and a context.
The balance of the cultural capital Bergamo-Brescia 2023 was very encouraging in the first half of the year: the Regional Observatory recorded a growth in the number of visitors, 4.8 million in total, 49% more than the period of previous year Nationals predominate, but there is a European flow as well as from the United States and Asia. That it is an increasingly sought-after destination can be felt in how hard it is to walk through the streets of Città Alta on a Sunday morning. How will it withstand eventual gentrification? What lessons could Barcelona draw from it?
"Whether you like Donizetti or not, you fall in love with it - concludes La Vanguardia's Cicerone - and the environment embraces you: the gastronomic offer is brilliant, the city is unpolluted, it's impressive to walk there at Christmas, it's like a fantasy, a story with a Donizetti background”.
