© Zani-Casadio
Autumn Trilogy
Tosca
melodrama in three acts
libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
based on La Tosca by Victorien Sardou
music Giacomo Puccini
Tosca Virginia Tola
Cavaradossi Diego Cavazzin
Scarpia Andrea Zaupa
Angelotti Paolo Gatti
Sagrestano Giorgio Trucco
Spoletta Filippo Pollini
Sciarrone Ion Stancu
A shepherd boy Julie Cassanelli
conductor Vladimir Ovodok
direction and concept Cristina Mazzavillani Muti
light designer Vincent Longuemare
visual designer David Loom
video programmer Davide Broccoli
costume designer Alessandro Lai
Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini
Coro del Teatro Municipale di Piacenza
choirmaster Corrado Casati
Coro di voci bianche Ludus Vocalis
conducted by Elisabetta Agostini
new staging
co-produced by Ravenna Festival, Teatro Alighieri Ravenna
On the Verge of the 20th Century
The sunset of an epoch merges into the dawn of a new era: Italian melodrama found new life at the close of the 19th century. Those were the years when everything inevitably led towards modernity, which would explode in the heart of the twentieth century and irradiate down to us. In 1890, Cavalleria Rusticana conquered the theatres with its dazzling expressive immediacy, imposing “realism” in music. Two years later, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci transformed an old real-life incident into a gloomy story of relentless passion. It was the explosion of what Verdi had called “parola scenica”, which threw new light on a century-long tradition. A light that shined fully in the tragic heroism of Puccini’s Tosca, whose dramatic strength and sophistication opened the new century.
Three operas, three different titles presented on the same stage on consecutive nights, in a real operatic “tour de force”: once again, the Festival manages to turn the Alighieri Theatre into an unremitting production machine. And the space on stage becomes a claustrophobic enclosure of distress, opening, closing, transforming, giving voice and substance to the tragedies that inform these masterpieces: death in duel, suicide, murder… going all the way to test these feelings. Visionary projections for the overwhelming passion of Cavalleria Rusticana, sharp shards of light for Pagliacci, more lights and projections for the suffocating Roman atmosphere of Tosca. Bold young voices, and the matching freshness of a conducting style forged in this very theatre, at Riccardo Muti’s Italian Opera Academy.
Duration:
Act I 50’ – Intermission 15’ – Act II 45’ – Intermission 20’ – Act III 30’
Total 2h 40’
