The music theatre takes centre stage in Italy this autumn, on the classic as well as on the contemporary scene: Giorgio Battistelli, Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale 2022, and world premiere of new critical edition at Festival Verdi in Parma.
Venice Biennale
In Venice, the 66th International Festival of Contemporary Music - under the artistic direction of Italian composer Lucia Ronchetti - is entitled Out of Stage, and is dedicated to the forms of experimental music theatre.
Works by Giorgio Battistelli, who is to be honoured with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement (read the full article), will open and close the event.
The award ceremony will take place on 15 September, soon after the 14 September festival opening at the Fenice theatre, which will feature the world premiere of the Italian version of Jules Verne (1984-1985), a chamber fantasy in the form of a stage production performed by the percussion trio Ars Ludi, Silver Lion winner.
Giorgio Battistelli, Golden Lion 2022
Peruse the composer's digital cataloge
The following are the composer’s works performed during the festival:
Jules Verne
Immaginazione in forma di spettacolo per trio di percussioni, tre voci, tromba e pianoforte
Libretto di Giorgio Battistelli
14.09.2022 Teatro La Fenice
Orazi e Curiazi
per due percussionisti
18.09.2022 Tese dei Soppalchi
Experimentum mundi
Opera di musica immaginistica per un attore, quattro voci naturali di donne, sedici artigiani e un percussionista
Libretto di Giorgio Battistelli dall’Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers di Denis Diderot e Jean Le Rond D’Alambert
25.09.2022 Teatro alle Tese
Full programme available at www.labiennale.org
Giorgio Battistelli, Experimentum mundi
Festival Verdi
In Parma, the annual Verdi Festival returns. On an artistic and scientific level, the event acts as an international point of reference for the promotion of Giuseppe Verdi’s works. In this twenty-second edition, the three works featured are ideally linked by the common thread of the Spanish literary sources they take inspiration from:
La forza del destino, after Ángel Perez de Saavedra’s play Don Álvaro o La fuerza del sino, is presented in the 1869 (Milan) version of the critical edition by Philip Gossett and William Holmes. This new production by Yannis Kokkos opens the festival, and is conducted by Roberto Abbado, Music Director of the Verdi Festival;
Simon Boccanegra, after Antonio García Gutiérrez’s play Simón Bocanegra, in its rarely seen first version (Venice 1857), offers the world premiere of the new critical edition by Roger Parker (read the full article). The production, by Valentina Carrasco, is conducted by Riccardo Frizza;
Il trovatore, after Antonio García Gutiérrez’s play El Trovador, staged at the Teatro Girolamo Magnani in Fidenza, features the new version for reduced orchestra by Enrico Minaglia (OperaLite collection) based on David Lawton’s critical edition.
The Festival is studded with numerous other events, running alongside the opera productions. Amongst them, the Messa da Requiem performed under the baton of Michele Mariotti, and based on the critical edition by David Rosen.
Full programme available at www.teatroregioparma.it
Go to the critical edition of Giuseppe Verdi’s works
Go to opera reductions for small orchestra
photo: Festival Verdi 2021 © Roberto Ricci