Tuesday, February 27, 2018 | 18:30. Italian Cultural Institute, 601 Van Ness Ave, Suite F (Opera Plaza), San Francisco (CA). Free admission | RSVP. The Verdi Festival is the first international festival dedicated exclusively to the study and production of the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, the most represented composer and celebrated ambassador of the Italian culture. The festival takes place every year around October 10th, Verdi's birthday, in Parma and Busseto, the land where the Maestro was born and lived.

The festival was inaugurated in 2001, the centennial of the death of the great composer, and has had illustrious guests such as conductors Bruno Bartoletti, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Daniel Oren, Antonio Pappano, Yuri Temirkanov, and directors Hugo De Ana, Dante Ferretti, Peter Greenaway, Denis Krief, Pier'Alli, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Stefano Poda, Pier Luigi Samaritani, Graham Vick.

Anna Maria Meo, the Director of the Teatro Regio di Parma, will speak about the theater with the support of a slide show and of a short video from the opera "Giovanna d'Arco," staged at the festival in 2016 and directed by Peter Greenaway and Saska Boddeke.