Filarmonia Veneta Unveils 2026-27 Season With Two Vocal Dates

The Orchestra Regionale Filarmonia Veneta has announced its 2026-27 season, and the slate includes two vocal performances that anchor the company's programming for the year ahead. Both concerts pair the orchestra with distinguished conductors and established singers, and both are built around central works of the vocal repertoire.

The first of the two vocal dates is a performance of Mozart's "Requiem" on Oct. 1, 2026. Diego Fasolis will conduct the Orchestra Regionale Filarmonia Veneta for the occasion. The performance stars four vocal soloists: Betty Makharinsky, Lucia Cirillo, Matteo Laconi and Marco Bussi.

Mozart's "Requiem" — the composer's final work, left unfinished at his death in 1791 — has been announced without further detail on the casting distribution among the soloists. What the announcement does confirm is the caliber of the assembled team. Fasolis is a conductor closely associated with choral and sacred repertoire, and the Requiem sits at the center of that tradition. The four soloists named for the date, Makharinsky, Cirillo, Laconi and Bussi, form the vocal quartet that the score requires.

The season's second vocal performance arrives on Feb. 16, 2027, when Marko Letonja takes the podium. Letonja will conduct Mahler's "Kindertotenlieder" with contralto Alessandra Visentin as soloist.

"Kindertotenlieder," Mahler's song cycle on the death of children, sets five poems by Friedrich Rückert and has long carried a particular weight in the contralto and baritone repertoire. Visentin's appearance as the announced contralto places the Italian singer at the center of the evening's most intimate work.

The Feb. 16 concert does not consist of Mahler alone. The program also includes music by Ottorino Respighi, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, and Beethoven, according to the announcement. That framing gives the evening an Italian accent — Respighi and Wolf-Ferrari both rooted in the late-Romantic and early-20th-century Italian orchestral tradition — wrapped around the German and Austrian core of Mahler and Beethoven.

For the Orchestra Regionale Filarmonia Veneta, the 2026-27 season thus offers audiences two distinct profiles of vocal writing: the monumental choral architecture of the Mozart "Requiem" in the autumn, and the concentrated intimacy of Mahler's song cycle in midwinter, set within a mixed orchestral program.

The two conductors announced for these dates point to the orchestra's range as well. Fasolis, known internationally for his work in sacred and symphonic-choral music, leads the October performance; Letonja, whose career has spanned opera houses and concert halls across Europe, closes the vocal offerings in February.

Details beyond the announced soloists, conductors, repertoire and dates — including venues, further programming across the full season, and additional casting — were not specified in the announcement. What is confirmed is the calendar: Mozart's "Requiem" under Fasolis on Oct. 1, 2026, with Makharinsky, Cirillo, Laconi and Bussi; and Mahler's "Kindertotenlieder" under Letonja with Visentin on Feb. 16, 2027, alongside Respighi, Wolf-Ferrari and Beethoven. Those two dates now stand as the vocal anchors of the Filarmonia Veneta's coming season.