“I DUE FOSCARI” IN TEATRO MUNICIPALE DI PIACENZA

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by Opera Charm Team

April 30, 2024

The Opera Season of the Municipal Theatre of Piacenza continues Friday 3 and Sunday 5 May with "I due foscari" by Giuseppe Verdi on the podium Matteo Beltrami, directed by Joseph Franconi Lee protagonists Luca Salsi, Luciano Ganci, Marigona Qerkezi.

The Opera Season at the Teatro Municipale in Piacenza continues with Giuseppe Verdi’s I due Foscari, staged on Friday 3 May at 8.00 p.m. and Sunday 5 May at 3.30 p.m. The preview for schools is scheduled for Tuesday 30 April at 3.30 pm.

An opera considered among the most musically refined of Verdi’s early works, 180 years after its first performance at the Teatro Argentina in Rome on 3 November 1844, it will be conducted by Matteo Beltrami in its new Verdi debut, on the podium of the Orchestra dell’Emilia-Romagna Arturo Toscanini, with the Chorus of the Teatro Municipale di Piacenza prepared by Corrado Casati. The title will be performed in the production already appreciated on important stages, signed by Joseph Franconi Lee, with sets and costumes by William Orlandi, lighting by Valerio Alfieri, collaborating director Daniela Zedda and choreography by Raffaella Renzi, in a new production by the Fondazione Teatri di Piacenza with the Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Modena.

The singing company is excellent, with the return to the Municipale di Piacenza of baritone Luca Salsi as Francesco Foscari, in the production that marked his debut in the role of the Doge in 2011 in Trieste, tenor Luciano Ganci for the first time in the part of Jacopo Foscari, soprano Marigona Qerkezi as Lucrezia Contarini, a role in which she has been applauded in prestigious theatres. Completing the cast are Antonio Di Matteo (Jacopo Loredano), Marcello Nardis (Barbarigo), Ilaria Alida Quilico (Pisana), Manuel Pierattelli (Fante) and Eugenio Maria Degiacomi (Servo del Doge).

I due Foscari, on a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave based on the drama of the same name by Lord Byron, set in the Venice of the Doges in 1457, is an opera pervaded by a tragic tint that centres the drama on the conflict between affection and duty of Francesco Foscari, “prence and father” as he calls himself, whose son Jacopo is accused of treason. The political dimension and the intimate, personal affair are the two aspects that characterise this opera, which Verdi described in a letter to Piave as “a beautiful subject, delicate and very pathetic”.

The composer, fresh from the successes of Nabucco and I Lombardi alla prima crociata, began to consider the idea of I due Foscari in 1843 for Venice, but the Teatro La Fenice induced him to shelve the project because it was too risky for the city where descendants of the Council of Ten, so negatively portrayed in the opera, still resided. The choice therefore fell on Ernani, a title successfully performed on 9 March 1844 in Venice, but Verdi did not forget I due Foscari and for the next commission at the Teatro Argentina in Rome he returned to Byron’s drama. Verdi and librettist Piave designed an opera of inner struggles, where injustice and political power predominate, played on the characters rather than the action, which already contained in nuce many elements that the composer would later develop.

Waiting for I due Foscari, the opera will be introduced to the public as usual by the students of Piacenza’s Liceo Respighi, who will present Verdi’s title on Thursday 2 May at 6 p.m. in the Sala dei Teatini in the #AperiOpera cycle, with free admission, in a multidisciplinary journey, including acting, music, in-depth studies and links with current events.

Info and tickets
For information and tickets: Municipal Theatre Box Office: tel. 0523 385720/21 – biglietteria@teatripiacenza.it

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OPERA CHARM TEAM

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Opera Charm Team

Alice Lechner

Alice Lechner comes from a music-loving family. Her first encounter with the opera universe was at the tender age of six. The grandeur of the stage productions and costumes, the backstage chatter, and last, but definitely not least, the music left her in awe, beginning with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The overall feeling that opera awakens in anyone who gets a glimpse into this part of artistic eternity, that each and every day passes the test of time, was what drew her to stay and be a part of this world. The Opera House of Brașov became her second home, and the people who worked there were her second family.

Since then, Alice has devoted her spare time to maximising her musical knowledge through instrumental studies, studying both piano and violin for a short time. In the following years, her number one passion stepped out of the limelight and graciously gave way to Law Studies.
Since 2018 she has been studying Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Her passion for opera, even if it is no longer her top professional priority in terms of career, it has most definitely become her priority during her free time. Wanting to experience the best of both worlds and extend her musical horizons, she regularly attends opera performances throughout Romania and abroad.
With OPERA Charm Magazine, Alice aims to nurture her creative side to help it flourish and bloom and to discover, alongside the magazine’s readers, the fascinatingly complex world of opera.

Currently, she is an LL.M. in Business Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.

Oana Zamfir

Oana Zamfir is a second year MA student at the “George Enescu” National University of Arts, at the Department of Musicology.

She studied violin for 12 years at the “Stefan Luchian” High School of Art in Botosani, later focusing on the theoretical aspects of music. In 2019 she completed her bachelor studies in Musicology as a student of the National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” in Cluj-Napoca. Her research during 2018-2019 brought to the forefront elements of the archaic ritual within works of composers who activated during the communist period, giving her the opportunity to start a research internship at the “Carl von Ossietzky” University in Germany. In this context, she recorded conversations with members of the Sophie Drinker Institute in Bremen, and had access to documents directly from the Myriam Marbé archive.

Since 2019 she has been a teacher of Music Education and Theoretical Music Studies, making full use of interactive methods in the musical training of students and working, at the same time, with the children’s choir founded in the first year of her activity.

Her interests include pursuing a degree in interior design in 2020.

Alexandru Suciu

Alexandru Suciu inherited his passion for art growing up in a family of several generations of musicians. He began his musical studies at the “Augustin Bena” School of Music in Cluj, where he studied piano and guitar. Even though his main study direction was philological, his passion for music prevailed. He began his academical journey at the Faculty of Letters of the “Babeș-Bolyai” University, studying Comparative literature and English. He continued by studying Opera Singing at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy. He also graduated the Musical Education section, followed by Artistic Directing at the Musical Performing Arts department.

His multidisciplinary education opened the doors towards research, which is seen both through his participation in national and international conferences and symposia, such as the Salzburg Easter School PhD-forum, organized by the Salzburg Universität or the Silesian Meeting of Young Scholars, organized by the Institute of English at the University of Silesia, as well as the collaboration with Opera Charm Magazine.

During his student years, he won several prizes, including the Grand Prize at the “Paul Constantinescu” National Musical Interpretation Competition, the Romanian Composers and Musicologists’ Union Prize at the same competition, the First Prize and the Schubert Prize at the “Ada Ulubeanu” Competition.

He further developed his artistic skills by specializing in courses and masterclasses held by personalities such as Vittorio Terranova, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Marian Pop, Ines Salazar, Riccardo Zanellato, Paolo Bosisio, Valentina Farcaș and Manuel Lange in contexts such as the Internationale Sommerakademie für Operngesang Deutschlandsberg, Corso Internazionale di Canto Lirico I.M.C. Licata or the Europäische Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst Montepulciano. Besides his activity on-stage, he currently teaches Opera Singing Didactics, and Pedagogical Practice within the Department for Teacher Education and Training at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy.

Cristina Fieraru

Cristina is a 24 year-old Romanian soprano & a student at the National University of Music Bucharest, where she pursues the MA program in Vocal Performance.

She made her debut in Pamina from “Die Zauberflöte” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at only 19 years old at the Bucharest National Opera House, as a member of the Ludovic Spiess Experimental Opera Studio. Over the years she made her debut in roles such as Contessa d’Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Mimì & Musetta (La Bohème), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte) in her university’s opera productions.
Her passion and experience extends in the field of choral music, too.

She has been part of our dream team since the fall of 2021. For a good period of time she took care of OPERA Charm’s social media and took you on the monthly journey through the history of opera through our Legends rubric – and a few times through the Theaters around the World rubric.

Her little soul rubric – from 2021 to present – is definitely the Conductors of the Future, where, every month, she gives you the chance to meet a young star of the world of conducting and, of course, to find out what’s the most charming feature of opera in these artists’ views.

BIANCA L. NICA

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