Roger Granville, Max Fane and Frankie Parham are not men to let a worldwide pandemic get in their way. Plans for the fourth New Generation festival in Florence were well underway when Covid-19 shut down Italy, then the rest of Europe and beyond. All of Europe’s summer festivals were cancelled, many reinventing themselves digitally, streaming live or prerecorded concerts. Some have been able to stage events outdoors for a reduced audience with strict social distancing measures in place. The New Generation festival decided to do both.
“Throughout March and April we were constantly coming up with all kinds of contingency plans. We were determined to find a way to put something on,” says Granville, one of the British trio behind the summer festival.
Now in its fourth year, New Generation (so named because of its commitment to emerging talent) has previously taken place in the magnificent private gardens of the 17th-century Palazzo Corsini. “We looked into what it would mean to build a socially distanced theatre there and it became clear the gardens weren’t big enough given all the health security we needed and the distancing.” So they looked for other outdoor venues within the city, and decided that the Boboli Gardens – next to the Pitti Palace – would work. On the basis that if you don’t ask you don’t get, they approached Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Gallery (which is also responsible for the historic gardens) to see if they could build a large stage outside and host a four-day festival there.
“Amazingly, he said yes immediately, and that he was a big fan of what we were doing at the Corsini Palace. And so here we are,” says Granville. The festival has been renamed Re-Generation, and a temporary theatre constructed that, were it at normal capacity, would seat around 1,500, but for the late August event will house only 500. “It’s absolutely enormous. Similar dimensions to the Bolshoi in Moscow,” says Granville. Enormous, too, was the paperwork required. “The permissions stage was about 7,000 pages worth … I’m not exaggerating. Italians love a bit of paperwork. Every single thing has to be submitted and approved.”
Temperature checks on arrival and mandatory masks will add to the new normal of live events, and performers too will be distanced. (“We’ve got markings everywhere to the nearest centimetre.”) The festival’s new opera production of Rossini’s Cenerentola has likewise been specially staged. Luckily, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine the Ugly Sisters keeping their distance from Cinderella, Granville says with a laugh.
Another major change to this year means that tickets for every show will be free. In previous years prices have ranged from €35 to €250, and if the British holidaymakers who comprised a substantial part of the audience will be absent, the team expect local music lovers to join them in the Boboli theatre.
In another first, every event across the four days will be live-streamed. This says Granville, costs an absolute fortune: “Not a single corporate partner came on board – and that wasn’t for the want of trying. All the money is from individuals.” It felt important, he says, to reach as wide an audience as possible and send a message about how crucial the arts are to society, and, that “with patronage, with collaboration, with flexibility and creativity we can all look out for each other … and get people back on their feet.”
Granville, 31, and his fellow producers Fane, 28, and Parham, 31, might come across as extras from a PG Wodehouse novel, but don’t be fooled. Their commitment and their phenomenal fundraising abilities are second to none. As well as the summer festival, they are opening a new opera school in Florence this autumn. Eight young singers and two répétiteurs will have nine months of masterclasses, language lessons, drama coaching and psychological training as well as performance opportunities. Sufficient funds have been raised to cover the fees; the trio are hoping that in future they can offer funding for accommodation and maintenance costs as well. This year’s intake includes students from Poland to Puerto Rico, Swaziland to Scotland – fingers are crossed that all will be able to travel to Italy next month.
Ralph Strehle, a German-born singer, academic, and former member of Germany’s under-16 national football team, heads the school. He believes sports psychology has much to offer singers, and speaks of the importance of pre- and post-performance routines, of learning to prepare for and focus on “winning” – whether in auditions or performances, and of focusing on developing muscular control and relaxation techniques. The 10 students won’t, however, be at the gym on a regime of press-ups and five-mile runs. We tend to suggest yoga and the Alexander technique, says Strehle, although developing stamina is, of course, crucial for a young singer.
Students will have the opportunity to participate in each summer festival’s opera production, whether as covers or chorus members. This year, as well as Rossini’s Cenerentola, there’s a symphonic concert (Beethoven’s 7th), with Daniele Rustioni conducting the Italian Youth Orchestra, a jazz night and late-night events including pioneering Disklavier pianist Dan Tepfer, and Devotion, who Granville promises are “the Spice Girls of the 21st century, three of Britain’s best young drag queens, hugely musical, brilliant and funny”.
The eclecticism testifies to the New Generation credo: all great music is great music, you’re allowed to love Beethoven as much as you love Beyoncé or Pink Floyd or Bach, as Granville puts it. “Live performance … of the utmost quality is what’s important,” says Fane. “Classical music doesn’t so much have an image problem as a huge messaging problem. I know everyone’s doing the best they possibly can in incredibly challenging situations, but I wish that the people with influence and power in the industry got around the table once a month and decided how to lobby government and how to lobby the public to argue the case for the existence of what we do.”
Both emphasise that the arts are not a luxury but a necessity, especially in these times. “It is something like Beethoven’s Third Symphony that has you leaping out of bed in the morning and gets you going again,” says Granville, who hopes the festival will be watched far and wide and will prove inspirational, mobilising and galvanising. “It’s a festival to demonstrate the restorative power of the arts in the city of the Renaissance.”
• ReGeneration festival streams live online at newgenerationfestival.organd from the Uffizi’s YouTube channel from 26-29 August. Tickets for the live concerts are available from 17 August via the website or the Uffizi Gallery.
