The Opera Season 2023-2024 of the Opera Carlo Felice Genoa closes with one of Gioachino Rossini’s most famous titles: Il barbiere di Siviglia – a comic drama in two acts to a libretto by Cesare Sterbini from the play by Pierre Beaumarchais – will be staged on Friday 14 June at 8.00 p.m..

Conducted by Giancarlo Andretta, direction and stage design by Damiano Michieletto, direction by Andrea Bernard, costumes by Carla Teti, lighting by Luciano Novelli. Staging by the Fondazione Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Orchestra, chorus and technicians from the Opera Carlo Felice. Choirmaster Claudio Marino Moretti. Master of recitatives Sirio Restani.

Bringing Rossini’s characters to life will be the students of the Opera Carlo Felice’s Academy of advanced training and professional integration for opera singers, as part of a project aimed both at the training of young opera talents – under the artistic direction of Francesco Meli, the coordination of Serena Gamberoni and the musical direction of Davide Cavalli – and at their actual debut. The cast includes Carlo Sgura and Gabriele Barria (15/18/20) (Figaro), Greta Carlino and Giulia Alletto (15/18/20) (Rosina), Paolo Nevi and Manuel Caputo (15/18/20) (Il Conte d’Almaviva), Gianpiero Delle Grazie and Willingerd Gimenez (15/18/20) (Don Bartolo), Davide Sabatino and Antonino Arcilesi (15/18/20) (Don Basilio), Gabriella Ingenito and Martina Saviano (15/18/20) (Berta), Ernesto de Nittis (Fiorello), Angelo Parisi and Franco Rios Castro (15/18/20) (An officer).

Il barbiere di Siviglia will be repeated on Saturday 15 June at 3 pm, Sunday 16 June at 3 pm, Tuesday 18 June at 8 pm, Wednesday 19 June at 8 pm and Thursday 20 June at 8 pm.

Il barbiere di Siviglia is a comic drama in two acts that Gioachino Rossini composed between late 1815 and 1816 for the Teatro Argentina in Rome. The composer chose Pierre Beaumarchais‘s 1775 comedy of the same name as the subject, but it was a rather bold choice, as Giovanni Paisiello’s version of the Barber was well known. Precisely as a mark of respect for the composer of the Neapolitan School, the first performance of Rossini’s Barbiere was held on 20 February 1816 under the title Almaviva, or L’inutile precauzione. The opera was immediately a huge success, and remains Rossini’s best-loved and most performed work to this day. In Il barbiere di Siviglia we find almost all the narrative devices that characterise the opera buffa: between accomplices and detractors, the two lovers Conte d’Almaviva and Rosina will have to invent stratagems, disguises and deceptions in order to finally crown their dream of love.

As was often the case in those years, Rossini, overwhelmed by his many commitments, composed the opera in a very short time and reused heterogeneous material previously composed. One of the most fascinating aspects of Rossini’s genius lies precisely in his ability to rework, which made pieces with even very distant origins perfectly coherent and cohesive. This is the case with Il Barbiere, a shining example of expressive variety where the composer collected the most disparate vocal, orchestral and choral styles with incredible vitality and his usual irony in a creation of unique impact.

Commented Giancarlo Andretta: ‘Re-opening the score of Il Barbiere di Siviglia and going back to studying Rossini with absolute care and ever new love is a moment of true “health”, like going back to the doctor for an effective director’s cleansing cure. Now it is happening for this production of the Opera Carlo Felice Genova in which two excellent casts of young singers from the Opera Academy are preparing their debut in Barbiere di Siviglia. Together with the young artists, we have set ourselves the goal of avoiding any routine, habits and customs that do not come from Rossini and that certainly would not have made him happy. We knew that we had to prepare as if for the première on 20 February 1816. We are now in the middle of rehearsals, and we are confident that we will make Maestro Rossini smile as he watches over us from up there, to create and give hours of pure musical and theatrical joy’.

Damiano Michieletto’s direction and stage design, created in 2005 for the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, narrate the opera by focusing on the theatrical rhythm with a linear and direct language: ‘It is a production centred on the stylistic features of the commedia dell’arte, from which I take the masks, which become the characters (imagining, for example, Don Bartolo as Pantalone, Figaro as Harlequin, Rosina as Colombina). There is nothing in the costumes that explicitly refers to the masks, the reference is rather in the setting of the play, in the register. The tone is deliberately naïve, I focused on theatrical dynamics with simple language. The show goes to the root and aims at comedy, it does not want to convey messages but to convey the dramatic rhythm and give it force with a play of interpretation that is not obvious and with a very simple staging. Andrea Bernard, who is directing the revival for the second time, has my full confidence’.

‘An intense opera season that of the Opera Carlo Felice Genova, with choices capable of daring combined with great classics,’ says the Acting President of the Liguria Region, Alessandro Piana, ‘as the opening and closing events fully demonstrate. The opening on 13 October with Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was able to amaze, while the closing of these days attracts the audience with a well-known title by Rossini and with the talents of the Opera Carlo Felice’s Academy of advanced training and professional integration for opera singers. There could not have been a better element to give the idea of a glimpse of the future, of the events to come as well as the names of tomorrow. A rewarding choice with a high symbolic value, very important for Genoa and for the whole of Liguria’.

Biographies

Giancarlo Andretta has been principal conductor and artistic direction consultant of the Gothenburg Opera House and Graz Opera House, guest conductor of the Royal Opera House in Copenhagen, permanent conductor of the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Granada Symphony Orchestra. In 2021, he was appointed a member of the Royal Swedish Academy. He has also served as artistic director and principal conductor of the Orchestra Regionale Filarmonia Veneta and the Orchestra del Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. Winner of several international prizes, his career began in 1989. During his career, he has been a guest in many opera houses and concert halls in Vienna, Amsterdam, Berlin, Zurich, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Prague, Glyndebourne, Lisbon, Oslo, Barcelona and others, conducting some of the most prestigious orchestras. In the academic field, he was a full professor of Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music of Denmark, and has been an external examiner at the Ministry of Culture of Denmark since 2010. He has given masterclasses at the Universities of Vienna, Zurich, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Oslo, Amsterdam, The Hague, Antwerp, Savonlinna and is professor of conducting at the Conservatory of Vicenza.

Damiano Michieletto has emerged on the international scene as one of the most interesting representatives of the young generation of Italian directors. His production of Švanda the Piper by Jaromír Weinberger, critically acclaimed at the 2003 Wexford Festival, won the Irish Times ESB Theatre Award. Since then, major engagements have followed in the world’s most prestigious theatres. Recent appointments include: new productions of Schreker’s Der Ferne Klang and Händel’s Alcina, revivals of Don Pasquale, Die Lustige Witwe, Il viaggio a Reims, and new productions of Berlioz’s Rigoletto and Béatrice et Bénédict at the Lyon Opera and the Opera Carlo Felice Genoa (Italian premiere), Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at the Komische Oper Berlin and at the Spoleto Festival 2024, Battistelli’s Le baruffe at the Teatro La Fenice, Händel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Italian première of Bernstein’s Mass at the Terme di Caracalla in Rome, the world première of Alexander Raskatov’s Animal Farm at the De Nationale Opera in Amsterdam, Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Sydney Opera House and Aida marking his debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper. In 2024 he will be at La Scala with Cherubini’s Médée, at the Royal Opera House with Carmen and at the Paris Opera with Massenet’s Don Quichotte.

The Accademia di alto perfezionamento e inserimento professionale per cantanti lirici dell’Opera Carlo Felice Genova, born in 2020, represents the link between the end of the academic course for young singers and their insertion into the difficult world of musical theatre. The artistic direction is entrusted to Francesco Meli, who has drawn on his theatrical experience to define the teaching guidelines, which focus on daily individual lessons in technique, vocal and theatrical interpretation. The students, after a public selection and through a five-month immersive study experience, are ready for their big debut on the stage of the Opera Carlo Felice. Every year, the theatre’s management programmes the last title of the season, assigning all the parts to the talents of the Accademia. In this course of study, under the musical direction of pianist Davide Cavalli and the coordination and teaching of Serena Gamberoni, the young singers participate in masterclasses held each year by the greatest names on the international opera scene, such as Daniela Barcellona, Leo Nucci, Michele Pertusi, Elisabeth Norberg Schulz, Riccardo Zanellato, Rosa Feola, Paolo Bordogna, Chris Merritt, and Roberto de Candia.

Great importance is attached to the relationship with one’s own body; each student is guided by experienced teachers in body awareness courses so that they can improve, preserve and protect their ‘musical instrument’.

Tickets
I sector: 100.00 euro
II sector: 80.00 euro
Sector III: 60.00 euro
Fourth sector: 50.00 euro
5th sector: 35.00 euro
Under 30: 25,00 euro Under 18: 15,00 euro
*all sectors

For further information: www.operacarlofelicegenova.it