One of the reasons why the Festival della Valle d’Itria exists is Paolo Grassi, the “Milanese from Martina.”

Of Martina descent from his father, he is known for shaping the history of culture and performing arts organization in Italy in the 20th century, co-founding the Piccolo Teatro di Milano with Giorgio Strehler.

Although he was not the direct architect of the Festival della Valle d’Itria, his passion shaped its essence. Before his passing, he entrusted his vision to Rodolfo Celletti, an authority in the world of opera, to carry on the dream of making Martina Franca the cradle of opera and bel canto. Two simple clauses: to give space to young talents and to propose unpublished and mostly unknown works from the 18th to the 19th centuries.

 

1975, Paolo Grassi and Alessandro Caroli

 

It was his genius as a theatrical organizer that infused the Festival della Valle d’Itria with the necessary spirit, giving the fatal impulse to the extraordinary trajectory that, from those distant seventies, has brought it to us today, citizens of a world that has lost many of the reference points of that time.

 

 

Paolo Grassi’s insight, to whom the Foundation surrounding the Chiostro di San Domenico is now dedicated, where it is based and occupies the convent’s rooms, still nourishes and grows: his idea of the need in Italy for a theater capable of also being, above all, a public service, characterized by a repertoire of high cultural level but still aimed at the masses.

And even today, the opera festival lives on in his city, amidst its stones.