A unique concert to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the arrival of Italian opera in Bohemia, thanks to Count F. A. Špork, was organised by Theatrum Kuks in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Prague.
In 1724, in Kuks, Italian musicians performed Orlando Furioso, an opera by Antonio Bioni. Only the overture of the score has been preserved to this day, yet many other extraordinary works by Bioni are housed in Czech archives. The modern premiere of these works, under the direction of Tomáš Hanzlík, marked this important anniversary for music and theatre.
The concert took place among the statues of Virtue and Vice by Matthias B. Braun and was the culmination of an international project. Czech instrumentalists and singers from the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice participated, and within their artistic residency, they symbolically brought Italian opera back to Kuks.
