On a recent evening, Giuseppe Gibboni, a rising violin star from Italy, played a rare 1734 Antonio Stradivari violin for a sold-out crowd on the stage of the Italian Academy's theater, to mark the launch of an important bicentenary--the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Italian opera in the United States.

The Italian Academy’s theater was fully packed for the kickoff of a new five-year initiative celebrating the opera anniversary. The project was introduced by its organizers: Music Professor Giuseppe Gerbino; Claudio Orazi, general manager of the Carlo Felice Opera House in Genoa; and Francesco Zimei, professor of musicology at the University of Trento.