The Catholic Church and the northern Italian city of Ferrara made their peace Thursday with Antonio Vivaldi nearly 300 years after the city’s archbishop effectively canceled the staging of one of his operas, sending the famed Baroque composer into debt for his final years in exile.
Ferrara Archbishop Giancarlo Perego attended the ceremony opening Vivaldi’s Il Farnace at the city’s public theater, a decision hailed by the theater’s artistic director as a “marvelous gesture” that helps heal the past and highlight one of Vivaldi’s lesser-known works.
“We want to restore to Vivaldi what was taken from him here in Ferrara,”