With this event the Fondazione Giorgio Cini secretary general and the Institute of Theatre and Opera wish to commemorate Gianfranco Folena, director of the Institute of Literature Music and Theatre from 1959 to 1992, on the thirtieth anniversary of his death. Organised in conjunction with the Gianfranco Folena National Committee, the study day will revisit the many innovative proposals put forward by Folena during his long directorship, when he made the Institute a cultural hothouse for research and discussion among the leading intellectuals of the day. The aim of the event is to highlight Folena’s wide-ranging cultural production, which, with its innovative and pioneering proposals on the Italian cultural scene, contributed to creating new areas of research in fields such as musicology, where he promoted libretto studies. Moreover, the creation of new content and the dissemination of the results led to innovative areas of research that later provided the guidelines for the Institute’s academic inquiries.

The participants include Daniela Goldin Folena (University of Padua), Gianfranco’s son Pietro Folena, Piero Del Negro (University of Padua), and Maria Ida Biggi (Ca’ Foscari University, Venice and director of the Institute of Theatre and Opera).