On the evening of August 11, 2021 the stunning Ancient Theatre of Taormina hosted an extraordinary performance of Rigoletto, produced by the Teatro Bellini of Catania. At the end of the performance, the conductor Plácido Domingo received the Bellini d’Oro award together with the Italian baritone Leo Nucci (performer and stage director) and the journalist Caterina Andò, for her studies on Bellini.

The Bellini d’Oro, instituted in 1968 by the Catanese Society Amici della Musica, includes in its roll of honor, among others, Riccardo Muti and Vittorio Gui, Luciano Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland, Renata Scotto, Nicolai Gedda, Giulietta Simionato, Franco Corelli, Cecilia Bartoli, Lucia Aliberti, and the musicologists Friedrich Lippmann, Maria Rosaria Adamo and Domenico De Meo.

“I am honored to receive the Bellini d’Oro, an award that has such a prestigious history and that over the years has been awarded to exceptional artists. Vincenzo Bellini left us priceless masterpieces and paved the way for all the great composers, especially Verdi” said Maestro Plácido Domingo, who was warmly welcomed and applauded by the audience. Then he added, “…now I understand why Goethe had called it [Taormina] ‘the greatest masterpiece of art and nature'. And what better setting to stage the opera as it was conceived by Verdi and to promote beauty, that Renaissance that we so much need.”

Plácido Domingo has often stated that he received two lives from his parents – his natural life and the life of his music. And that love made him the legend that still today, at the age of 80, he represents for the world of opera with his 150 stage roles, 500 performances and concerts conducted, several music videos, two Emmy Awards, and still a promise: “Next year I will come to Palermo to sing Simon Boccanegra. And then I hope to return to Catania one day to conduct Bellini with this great orchestra.”