Openings: Macbeth and Turandot
The 2021/2022 Season has officially started: Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth at La Scala in Milan and Giacomo Puccini's Turandot at the Paris Opera.
La Scala Opening: Verdi's Macbeth
Conducted by Riccardo Chailly and directed by Davide Livermore, with Luca Salsi (Macbeth), Anna Netrebko (Lady Macbeth), Ildar Abdrazakov (Banco), Francesco Meli (Macduff). The critical edition, which has been chosen for this new production, presents the 1865 version as the main text of the opera.
Verdi himself had a special fondness for this opera, and the original version is arguably the most important work of his formative years. When he revised Macbeth in 1865, originally with the intention of adding a ballet for a production at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, he rewrote far more of the opera than he had first planned. The Paris premiere of the revised version (in which Verdi did not take part) was not a success, however. In Italy, the original version continued to be preferred throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century. During the twentieth century the revised version has largely eclipsed the earlier one, although many modern productions interpolate Macbeth’s death scene from the 1847 score.
Trailer
Paris Opera Opening: Puccini's Turandot
«Bob Wilson and Gustavo Dudamel bring their magic to Puccini's Turandot at the Paris Opera» | Diapason
25 years after directing Madama Butterfly, today still one of the most acclaimed productions in the Opera’s repertoire, Robert Wilson returns to Puccini, this time with Turandot, the Italian composer’s final masterpiece. The pared down minimalist sets and the lighting compositions, so quintessential to the director’s perspective, lend themselves perfectly to the saga of the cruel Princess, daughter of the emperor of an immemorial China. The production is built as a series of tableaux, each borrowed directly from Noh theatre whose ritualised gestures magnify group scenes or bring a hint of burlesque as is the case with the comic trio, Ping, Pang and Pong.
Trailer
photo: Luca Salsi and Ildar Abdrazakov in Macbeth
© Brescia e Amisano / Teatro alla Scala