The Puccini Festival launches Agorà Celeste, a new artistic trail linking the Parco della Musica and the foyer of the Gran Teatro Giacomo Puccini

On 4 October 2025 at 5.30 pm, the Puccini Festival will launch Agorà Celeste, a major new exhibition project that brings the Park of Music and Sculpture into dialogue with the foyer of the Gran Teatro Giacomo Puccini, furthering an ambitious initiative to promote contemporary art that the Foundation launched following an extraordinarily successful musical season.

The title *Agorà Celeste* evokes, on the one hand, the idea of the agora as a square and a public space open to the community, and on the other, the meaning of ‘celestial’, which relates both to the outdoor sculptures, situated beneath the starry vault, and to the indoor ones, repositioned high up in the foyer as friezes that evoke the Parthenon reliefs dedicated to the celestial deities.

The star of the new exhibition will be Igor Mitoraj, an internationally renowned artist: his extraordinary panels – works of museum-quality – will form part of an exhibition designed to enhance the Festival’s international appeal.

The completely refurbished foyer will also house Sandro Chia’s diptych, a masterpiece that will significantly enhance the theatre’s artistic offering and strengthen the Festival’s ties with leading figures in contemporary art.

The new exhibition will also feature works by Ugo Nespolo, Kan Yasuda and Naal, which will add prestige and variety to the exhibition, reinforcing the dialogue between different artistic languages and the Festival’s commitment to embracing the most fruitful cross-pollinations in contemporary art.

This project forms part of a wider initiative to enhance the Giacomo Puccini Park of Music and Sculpture, which is already hosting the exhibition “… a riveder le stelle” dedicated to Pietro Cascella. The exhibition, now relocated to a new area of the park, establishes a renewed dialogue with nature and architecture, highlighting the sculptures created for the stage design of Turandot (2004), which combine monumentality and spirituality, geometric rigour and symbolic tension.

The project also includes a complete refurbishment of the foyer, designed as a space for encounters and dialogue between the arts, and the renovation of the bookshop, which will become an integral part of the cultural and tourist experience for visitors.

Curated by Valeria Pardini, Agorà Celeste aims not only to celebrate the great music of Giacomo Puccini, but also to establish the Festival as a leading centre for contemporary art, engaging in dialogue with the great masters of sculpture and painting of our time. The decision to preserve and promote Cascella’s works in parallel demonstrates the Foundation’s commitment to creating a permanent, high-quality artistic programme, capable of offering visitors a comprehensive and highly prestigious cultural experience.

The public, the press and friends of the Festival are invited to attend.