At Festival Verdi, the city of Parma celebrates its most distinguished son, Giuseppe Verdi, with exceptional stagings such as Jacopo Spirei’s take on the composer’s last opera “Falstaff”. In a contemporary British setting, Italian baritone Roberto de Candia gives a hilarious performance in the title role, but at the same time manages to outline’s Falstaff’s melancholy. The role of the jealous husband is played by Giorgio Caoduro, who exhibits “excellent vocal qualities, his timbre clear and vibrant, his intonation perfect.” (Bachtrack) Riccardo Frizza conducts the bittersweet comedy.
Verdi: Jérusalem
For Verdi lovers, the Festival Verdi in Parma is the place to be, especially for rare Verdi stagings such as “Jérusalem”. The opulent staging by Hugo de Ana, also responsible for the grandiose set design and gorgeous costumes, is “overwhelming with its phenomenal illusionist effects and breathtaking desert scenes” (klassik-begeistert.de). Star tenor Ramón Vargas sings Gaston and Annick Massis his lover Hélène. Pablo Galvez impresses as Count of Toulouse, whose brother Roger is excellently sung by Michele Pertusi. Under the baton of Daniele Calligari, the Chorus of the Teatro Regio di Parma gives an outstanding performance.
Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman)
At Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, maestro Fabio Luisi gives “a superb performance” (Operawire) of Der Fliegende Holländer, the forerunner of grand Wagnerian dramas. His Italian Richard Wagner debut is infused with energy and drive, under his direction the orchestra and chorus of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, together with Coro Ars Lyrica, sparkle “in
what was a five star performance” (Operawire). Thomas Gazheli stars as the Dutchman, who has been condemned to endlessly wander the seas until the day of Judgement. Marjorie Owens shines as his saviour Senta.
Il Trovatore
A monumental staging by late legendary director Franco Zeffirelli brings superstar Anna Netrebko to the Arena of Verona where she is giving her much-anticipated debut in one of Giuseppe Verdi’s most popular operas, Il Trovatore. Zeffirelli created a legendary scenery within the Arena, one of the most spectacular open-air venues of the world. Next to Anna Netrebko as Leonora perform Verdi accomplished baritone Luca Salsi as Count di Luna. Yusif Eyvazov returns to the Arena as his powerful-voiced opponent Manrico. MET star Dolora Zajick as Azucena and young rising Italian bass Riccardo Fassi as Ferrando join the prestigious ensemble. The revered master of opera Franco Zeffirelli, who died shortly before the premiere of Il Trovatore, created a legendary scenery with groups of giant sized armoured knights, a fortress turning into a luminous cathedral, an enormous choir, horses, breathtaking fights: “his perhaps best arena production” (Opernglas).
L’equivoco stravagante
The directing duo Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier create a superb and witty realization of L’equivoco stravagante (The Bizarre Misunderstanding), one of the less-known operas of Gioachino Rossini. In addition to the amusing ironic staging, conductor Carlo Rizzi together with the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI and his excellent singer ensemble including Teresa Iervolino and Davide Luciano offer an absolute musical highlight of the Rossini Festival. “The evening is simply stunning” (Neue Musik Zeitung).
La campana sommersa
Best-known for his brilliantly evocative and rightly popular trilogy of tone-poems on Rome, Italian composer Ottorino Respighi was also a noted composer of operas. His gloriously lyrical and opulently orchestrated adaptation of Gerhart Hauptmann’s fin de siècle allegory Die versunkene Glocke (The Sunken Bell), the opera La campana sommersa is Respighi’s operatic masterpiece – a magical, if ultimately tragic, tale of the love between a mortal human and an immortal fairy.
Die Zauberflöte
Accompanied by a luxurious team of professionals,led by renowned stage director Peter Stein and conductor Ádám Fischer, a number of international young singers were given the opportunity to introduce themselves to the public of La Scala in an extremely high level setting. The result was an instant success, not only with the audience of La Scala, which is famous for its more than critical loggionisti, but also with the television audience, where the live broadcast reached record breaking viewing rates. According to Die Presse Fischer “gets the best out of the Accademia Orchestra with delicate execution and humane phrasing” while the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung praises “the high number of promising young voices”, including the “radiantly brilliant Newcomer Fatma Said as Pamina and Yasmin Özkan as a flawlessly great Queen of the Night”.
La Bohème
120 years after its very first performance, which took place at Teatro Regio di Torino, La Bohème returns to the tradition-steeped Italian opera house. With director Àlex Ollé from La Fura dels Baus and music director Gianandrea Noseda the Teatro Regio presents a spectacular, up-to-date anniversary production featuring a young, lively and high-quality cast. “A triumphant youthful Bohème”, in which the singers excel due to their naturalness. Giorgio Berrugi sings his Rodolfo “with a luminous timbre, in refined nuances” (La Stampa), perfectly matching “Irina Lungu’s full-bodied Mimì” (The London Times). All in all, “this is theatre, this is life, this is passion” (Corriere della sera).
Giovanna d’Arco
With more than 50 years of experience as film director, Peter Greenaway (Nightwatching, Eisenstein in Guanajuato) combines the worlds of film and opera with Giovanna d’Arco at the Verdi Festival in Parma. The opera’s libretto is based on Friedrich Schiller’s The Maid of Orleans. It tells the story of the French national hero Jeanne d’Arc. Earthly passion and supernatural purity are rendered vivid in the musical interpretation of the Virtuosi Italiani and the Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma, conducted by Ramón Tebar, and by three exceptional singers, Vittoria Yeo, Luciano Ganci and Vittorio Vitelli, “who have the Verdian idiom in their blood, performing veritable miracles of expressive singing and italianità” (Kieler Nachrichten). Turning the auditorium into the scene, Greenaway includes the unique architecture of the Teatro Farnese, one of Italy’s oldest and most exceptional theatre gems, into his staging. By the help of spectacular video and light installations, he creates a completely new opera experience, using a picture language that reaches from depictions of the Madonna to modern manga girls and the real faces of refugee children.
La bella dormente nel bosco (Sleeping Beauty)
For the seasonal opening of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, acclaimed stage director Leo Muscato rediscovered a precious rarity of the 20th century: The “musical fairytale” La bella dormente nel bosco (The Sleeping Beauty) by Ottorino Respighi, which had not been staged for 50 years, and which Muscato revived in a “brilliant, surprising and colourful” staging (La Stampa). Indeed, Respighi put a lot of passion and effort into La bella dormente, which is based on Charles Perrault’s fairy tale of the same name. Originally, the piece was conceived as a puppet show, written by Respighi for the Italian marionettist Vittorio Podrecca, director of the famous marionette company Teatro dei Piccoli (Theatre for Children). It was premiered at the Teatro Odescalchi in Rome in 1922. The numerous roles were all interpreted by marionettes and only accompanied by orchestra and singers, who took several roles at once. The production became such a big hit that it went on world tour. Respighi revised his opera two times. The second version, featuring mime artists and dancers instead of marionettes, was put on stage in 1934. A third, posthumous version, completed by Respighi’s wife Elsa, was performed in a concertante version in 1967 in Turin. In the present production of the Teatro Lirico, the prestigious cast of young singers and the enthusiasm shown by Donato Renzetti – who “conducts the orchestra with apparent love for Respighi’s music” (Der Opernfreund) – make their contribution to a “splendid Respighi-Rennaissance” (La Stampa).