Riccardo Muti returns to the Regio to conduct the theatre’s Orchestra and Chorus and a superlative cast of performers in Giuseppe Verdi‘s Un ballo in maschera that promises to be a must-see. The new staging – on stage for six performances from Wednesday 21 February at 8 p.m. until Sunday 3 March – is by Andrea De Rosa, director of the TPE Teatro Astra in Turin. The stars of Verdi’s masterpiece are: Piero Pretti as Riccardo, Luca Micheletti as Renato and Lidia Fridman as Amelia.

“We are thrilled and proud to welcome Maestro Riccardo Muti back to the Regio,” declares Superintendent Mathieu Jouvin. “Together with Artistic Director Cristiano Sandri, we have planned the 2023-2024 Amour Toujours Season around two central points: Giacomo Puccini – in the year of the centenary celebrations – and the extraordinary presence of Maestro Muti with a new production of Verdi’s masterpiece”.

The new production at the Regio is realised thanks to the contribution of Reale Mutua, whose President Luigi Lana declares: ‘Reale Mutua renews its deep commitment to supporting the Teatro Regio and Verdi’s opera, especially under the masterful direction of maestro Muti. This long-standing collaboration, which has lasted several years and includes unforgettable productions, goes beyond mere cultural support. It embodies our deep-rooted commitment to tradition and art, reflected in our 196-year history. We are proud to be part of this extraordinary project and wish the audience an unforgettable experience with Un ballo in maschera, conducted by maestro Riccardo Muti”.

Riccardo Muti is undoubtedly one of the most prestigious conductors in the world, ‘the apostle of the Italian myth’ (as the journalist Lorenzo Arruga called him): his brilliant career and magnetic personality make him a constant source of inspiration and fascination. He will be back on the podium of the Teatro Regio after Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, streamed in March 2021, and after Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in November 2022. In a recent interview with la Repubblica, collected by Susanna Franchi, the Maestro said: ‘The Regio is a very important theatre, which has done important things, there has been Toscanini, there have been great conductors, I hope it can continue to improve all the time. The meeting with orchestra, choir and technicians was extraordinary, there is a way of being there that perhaps comes from the elegance of the city. It is an excellent working environment and that is the reason why I came back, I go back, and I hope to go back again’.

Theatre director of prose and opera, Andrea De Rosa was director of the Teatro Stabile in Naples and is now director of the TPE Teatro Astra in Turin. He has already collaborated with Maestro Riccardo Muti on Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (Ravenna, Madrid) and Paisiello’s Il matrimonio inaspettato (Salzburg Whitsun Festival). The Turin audience was able to appreciate his directorial reading in Schumann/Byron’s Manfred and in the diptych formed by Goyescasdi Granados and Puccini’s Suor Angelica. He describes his work as follows: ‘Riccardo’s court, his palace, will be constantly immersed in a festive atmosphere. From the very first scene, I will portray an atmosphere of exhaustion, of drunkenness, as if we were at the end of one of the many masked balls that take place in this house. I imagined a young Richard who, before being a governor, is a man who gives off a vital energy similar in some ways to that of Don Juan. For such a man, the impossible love for Amelia, the wife of his closest friend, becomes the insurmountable limit that he is tempted to cross. The dark side of this love, which drags the unfortunate towards the final tragedy and death, will have the face of Ulrica, the sorceress, the seer who, like the witches in Macbeth, will give the final push to what was already precipitating. The mask will be the central element, not only in the final dance, but in the staging of the whole play’.

Riccardo, Earl of Warwick, will have the voice and face of tenor Piero Pretti, an artist with an international career, much loved by the Regio audience, where he has played key roles in important productions: I Vespri siciliani, Rigoletto, Lucia di Lammermoor and La traviata in the 2011 and 2012 Seasons; the award-winning La donna serpente in the 2015-16 Season and Macbeth in June 2017 directed by Emma Dante. He has worked on all the most important stages: from the Paris Opera to the Vienna State Opera, via La Scala. His repertoire, as a true lyric tenor, ranges from Donizetti’s masterpieces to those of Puccini, including all the main roles created by Verdi. And he has participated in numerous productions directed by Maestro Muti. So has Luca Micheletti – the star of the last Don Giovanni – who makes his debut in the role of Renato. The 38-year-old baritone, actor and director, but also essayist, translator and playwright with a doctorate in Italian studies, is a child of art, heir to a dynasty of wandering artists. He began singing almost by chance when Marco Bellocchio asked him to do so for the film on Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. Since his debut in 2018, he has performed on the most important stages from La Scala to the Royal Opera House in London, from Sydney to Tokyo under the direction of maestros such as Riccardo Muti and Zubin Mehta. Amelia, Renato’s wife, will be Lidia Fridman, a rising star on the operatic scene. Born in 1996, the Russian singer trained at the Conservatories of Udine and Venice, a sensitive performer with a well-calibrated, fluid voice and a stage presence that has proved to be extremely incisive; she returns to the Teatro Regio after Norma in the 2022 Season. Mezzo-soprano Alla Pozniak will be the soothsayer Ulrica, soprano Damiana Mizzi the pageboy Oscar. The cast also includes baritone Sergio Vitale (Silvano), bass Daniel Giulianini (Samuel), bass Luca Dall’Amico (Tom) and tenor Riccardo Rados (Un giudice and Un servitore di Amelia).

The new production makes use of the extremely refined and elegant sets by Nicolas Bovey, Ubu Award 2021 for Best Set Design of La casa di Bernarda Alba and Le sedie, Ubu Award 2022 for Best Lighting Design of La signorina Giulia and I due gemelli veneziani, Le Maschere del Teatro Award for the set design of Le Sedie.

The costumes are designed by Ilaria Ariemme, a Turinese who lives and works in Milan, a pupil of Luisa Spinatelli, Gastone Mariani, Maria Carla Ricotti, Miretta Tovini and Edoardo Sanchi. Choreographic movements are by Alessio Maria Romani and lighting by Pasquale Mari. The Teatro Regio Chorus is instructed, as usual, by Maestro Ulisse Trabacchin.

Giuseppe Verdi’s three-act melodrama, on a libretto by Antonio Somma based on Eugène Scribe’s play Gustave III, ou Le Bal masqué, debuted at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 17 February 1859 (and not in Naples as planned) after a gruelling dispute with the Bourbon censors, who forced Verdi to disguise potentially anti-monarchist messages. At the centre of the story are Riccardo, Count of Warwick and governor of Boston, Renato, his secretary, and Amelia, Renato’s wife. The Count has organised a grand ball where he will be able to see Amelia, the woman he is secretly in love with, but who is married to his close friend, Renato. The latter warns him of a conspiracy hatched by his enemies Samuel and Tom, while the fortune-teller Ulrica predicts that Riccardo’s death will be at the hands of Renato, a prophecy to which no one listens. The discovery of the love between his wife and Riccardo convinces Renato to collaborate with the conspirators to kill the Count. Everything happens during the famous masked ball scene, when Riccardo is shot dead by Renato, blinded by jealousy. In the opera, based on a true story, the comic and the tragic coexist in masterly balance, the frivolity of the pageboy Oscar, the only character in disguise in all of Verdi’s theatre, and the passion of the love duet in Act II and Renato’s great aria “Eri tu che macchiavi quell’anima”.

The Anteprima Giovani, reserved for the Under 30s, is scheduled for Monday 19 February at 8 pm.

The opera will be presented on Wednesday 14 February at the Piccolo Regio Puccini at 6 p.m., in a conference-concert with free admission conducted by Susanna Franchi.

Ticketing and information

Tickets for Un ballo in maschera are on sale at the Teatro Regio box office and online at www.teatroregio.torino.it

Teatro Regio Box Office: Piazza Castello 215 – Turin | Tel. 011.8815.241 – 011.8815.242 | biglietteria@teatroregio.torino.it. Opening hours: Monday to Saturday 11am-7pm; Sunday: 10.30am-3.30pm; one hour before performances.

For all information and updates: www.teatroregio.torino.it

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