Pesaro: Thursday 29 February highlight of the Rossini Weeks, free opening for the whole day of Casa Rossini and the National Rossini Museum.

And just for this special day, Casa Rossini and the National Rossini Museum they offer free opening for the whole day. The composer's birthplace is visited from 10 13 to and from the 15.30 18.30; a gift awaits visitors and a small workshop corner will be set up for the little ones (info 0721 387357). The Palazzo Montani Antaldi Museum opens its doors to the public from 10 13 to and from the 15 18 (info 0721 1922156).

Also on Rossini National Museum – more precisely the evocative Hall of Mirrors – at 11am hosts the press conference to present the editorial activity of the Rossini Foundation: critical edition of the opera Eduardo e Cristina edited by Andrea Malnati and Alice Tavilla (opera staged in world modern premiere to the ROF 2023), “Bulletin of the Rossini Study Center” LXII edition, series “Rossinian theses” volume edited by Paolo De Matteis MIDDLE TIMES the dramatization of aria in opera serie (1770-1813). For the occasion, a musical autograph and a letter from Gioachino Rossini will be donated to the Foundation by professor Giovanni Cascio Pratilli. Info: 0721 33818 – 30053.

At 21pm at the Rossini Theatre Rossini's Messa di Gloria, the concert promoted by the Rossini Conservatory and the Rossini Opera Festival in collaboration with AMAT. The performance is entrusted to the Orchestra and Choir of the Rossini Conservatory, directed by Luca Ferrara, choirmaster Riccardo Lorenzetti; the solo voices of the ROF will be Maria Laura Iacobellis (soprano), Andrea Niño (contralto), Pietro Adaíni (tenor), Antonio Mandrillo (tenor), Alberto Comes (bass).

Consisting of only Kyrie and Gloria, the Mass was composed by Rossini for the “Royal Archconfraternity of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows,” more commonly known as the Archconfraternity of San Luigi of Naples. Performed for the first time on 24 March 1820 in the church of San Ferdinando in the Neapolitan city, it was welcomed with such enthusiasm that it elicited long applause within the sacred place and Rossini was attributed the qualification of a learned, serious, sublime composer.

The only important sacred composition to which Rossini dedicated himself during his period of operatic activity, despite the destination (the solemn celebration of the feast of the Sorrows of the Virgin), it does not lack citations of operatic themes. The Messa di Gloria remained unknown for more than a century until, starting from the mid-1960s, the discovery of numerous sources gave Philip Gossett the opportunity to reconstruct its genesis and, subsequently, together with Giovanni Acciai to prepare its critical edition for the Rossini Foundation. Tickets (single seat €10) can be purchased online on vivaticket.it and at the Rossini Theater ticket office (Wednesday-Saturday 17-19.30pm; the day of the concert from 17pm). Info: www.conservatoriorossini.it.

Rossini's birthday day is also enriched with a special inauguration open to the community: that of the Scavolini Auditorium (at 18pm) which returns to the city one of the most strategic places for live entertainment and which will return to being one of the venues of the Rossini Opera Festival in an extraordinary edition for Pesaro 2024.