Knoxville Urban Guy, K.W. Leonard, Heather Ryerson and Tricia Bateman contributed photos to this story.
Knoxville Opera’s Rossini Festival has come a far way from its early incarnations. It was conceived in 2002 as an Italian street fair, inspired by then-director and principal conductor Francis Graffeo’s trip to the seaside town of Pesaro, Italy. Known as the “City of Music” (Città Della Musica), Pesaro is the birthplace of legendary 19th-century opera composer Gioachino Rossini, and for 45 years it has hosted an annual festival in his honor.
Katie Spencer, Knoxville Opera’s director of advancement, says, “Frank came back and was like, ‘We can do this in Knoxville. We have the talent. We have the place. Let’s make it happen.’”
That first year, Gay Street was closed – an easier feat, in those days – and populated with authentic Italian food and vendors. The Festival featured Rossini’s “Cinderella” (La Cenerentola), performed in a dustier, more dated version of the Tennessee Theatre, which was on the cusp of a major restoration to its jewel-box prime.
“This is back when downtown Knoxville didn’t have a whole lot to offer,” Spencer says. “Part of it was they wanted to bring people downtown and show people that, you know, the arts are here, and that Knoxville has an art scene to start supporting. Twenty-something years later, we have a massive art scene that people love, love and appreciate.”
The event drew about 6,000 people, impressive for a first-time festival. That number doubled the following year and continued to grow. Spencers says, “We didn’t have enough Italian vendors to keep up with the audience and we couldn’t maintain our solely Italian flair, so we expanded to be an international street festival celebrating all cultures and all cultural arts that we have represented here in East Tennessee.”
The 2025 festival occupied Market Square, Market Street and a block-and-a-half each of Union and Clinch Avenues. It featured non-stop entertainment on four outdoor stages showcasing opera, classical, jazz, gospel, ethnic music, ballet, modern and ethnic dance. There were food vendors aplenty and more than 75 artisans throughout the market, along with a Kids & Family Fun Zone full of inflatables, rides and a climbing wall.
Our young son’s favorite part of the festival is always Society for Creative Anachronism and Knoxville Academy of the Blade. In historic costume, they fence, fight and behead water bottles to the delight of the crowd. It’s theater for sport, or sport for theater – I’m not sure which, but it’s great fun and it took the promise of a hot dog with extra ketchup to drag him away.
The stages are an awesome opportunity for local performance groups to show what they’re about and – perhaps! – recruit new involvement. It’s only been a couple weeks since I last hit our readers over the head with a frying-pan diatribe about supporting and participating in the arts, so I won’t do it again.
Well, maybe just a little bit.
SO many of the groups performing at Rossini are groups that YOU could be a part of, too, depending on your interests. It’s never too late to become an artist. From Circle Modern Dance, Southern Taps Clogging Company and the Knoxville Swing Dance Association to Knoxville Community Band, Appalachian Equality Chorus and Knox Honkers & Bangers, and so many more, Knoxville has an enormous assortment of gateways through which to get involved with the performance arts.
Rossini is also a wonderful showcase for youth performance. This year, stages featured the Knoxville Opera Children’s Choir, Knoxville Suzuki Academy, School of Rock Knoxville, and several school bands and choirs. Performing in the heart of downtown, before an audience that doesn’t consist solely of your parents and classmates, can be a formative experience for young artists. I grew up dancing and remember looking out on the crowd, from a Market Square stage during Dogwood Arts Festival in the ‘80s, and it awakening something in me.
We had the experience at this year’s Rossini of performing with Knox Honkers & Bangers (& Shakers, its dance troupe). This hot pink community marching band, a lively wing of Cattywampus Puppet Council, now encompasses at least 60 people, ranging from Serious Musicians to former high-school/college band geeks to folks like myself, who possess few portable music skills but enjoy the comeraderie. We slow-paraded around Market Square, parting the sea of Rossini-goers with a 10-foot-tall Dolly Parton puppet and interpretive covers like David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.”
It’s cognitive dissonance in the best way possible. Speaking of which: When you’re catching whiffs of corn dog and funnel cake while standing in line for the minion-themed bounce house (again), it’s easy to wonder, Wait, remind me what all this has to do with an opera again?
“When we started putting this on, it was to raise visibility of the arts scene downtown, and that’s essentially been a part of what we’ve been doing ever since,” Spencer says. Rossini Festival benefits Knoxville Opera for All, the umbrella for a number of engagement programs including Children’s Choir, a tuition-free opportunity for grades 3rd, 4th and 5th; the Gospel Choir; Military Chorus; and much more.
And it serves as an access point in and of itself. “It’s a way that we can serve our community by providing free access to music and creating this experience that not everyone is going to have an opportunity to have,” Spencer says. “A part of our mission of giving voice to the stories that connect us. We want to connect our community through the arts, and that is why we do this.”
Knoxville Opera’s next production is Stuck Elevator, taking place May 14 + 16-18 at Old City Performing Arts Center. Knoxville Opera’s Croquet Tournament takes place May 18 and sounds like a heck of a lot of fun. Learn more about Knoxville Opera here.
