I.C.O. Symphony Orchestra & Choir

Small Italian festival companies are often assembled rather than inherited — a chorus and an orchestra drawn together for one summer, rehearsed hard, then dispersed until the following year. The I.C.O. Symphony Orchestra & Choir supplied choral and orchestral forces for opera in and around San Gimignano, the walled Tuscan hill town whose towers fill with visitors through July and August. Bizet's "Carmen" was among the works it took part in during the Toscana Opera Festival seasons of the early 2000s.