TCBO: OPERA SEASON 2025 PREVIEW

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by Opera Charm Team

July 5, 2024

10 titles, including 3 new productions in world premiere, 3 performances for the first time in Bologna and 2 operas in concert form.

Opening on 24 January with a new production of Puccini's Fanciulla del West signed by Paul Curran and directed by Riccardo Frizza.

Two pages of the twentieth century such as Bernstein's Candide - for the first time in the history of the Comunale, conducted by Kevin Rhodes and directed by Renato Zanella - and, after 57 years of absence, Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex in a reading by Gabriele Lavia and with Oksana Lyniv on the podium

Featured voices include those of Jessica Pratt, Fabio Sartori, Anastasia Bartoli, Amartuvshin Enkhbat, Mariangela Sicilia, Peter Wedd, Claudio Otelli, Juliana Grigoryan, Stefan Pop and Nicola Alaimo.

The Teatro Comunale di Bologna’s 2025 Opera Season combines titles from the great repertoire with lesser-visited pages. The season will once again take place at the Comunale Nouveau in Piazza della Costituzione, while waiting for the reopening – following redevelopment work – of the historic venue in Largo Respighi, scheduled for 2026. More than a year after the move to the exhibition pavilion, the public has rewarded the efforts made by the theatre and the artistic proposal: the number of spectators at the Comunale Nouveau is in fact on the rise, and in the opera performances of the 2024 Season it is registering an overall average occupancy of around 85%, with peaks of around 97% in the case of the recent Don Giovanni. “Registering an average attendance at the Nouveau of between 850 and 900 people per performance,” says Superintendent Fulvio Macciardi, “is equivalent to a full house in the less capacious Sala Bibiena of the Teatro Comunale. Feeling the city’s closeness fills us with pride and encourages us to do even better, also for the next season. Since last year we have also been renewing our audience, with a greater presence of young people under 30. In 2024 we also expanded the offer of cheaper tickets, to make our theatre more accessible to everyone, and in 2025 we will continue in this direction”.

Ten operas are on the programme, of which three are new productions premiered, three are shows coming to Bologna for the first time and two are titles in concert form. In spite of the particular characteristics of the Comunale Nouveau stage, three of the productions are co-productions with other Italian theatres, with a view to enhancing collaboration and circulation on a national basis.

In the wake of Puccini’s celebrations, the inauguration of 2025 will also be marked by the music of the great Tuscan composer with La fanciulla del West (24-30 January): a new production premiered by Paul Curran – recently engaged in Bologna in two great titles of the German repertoire such as Der fliegende Holländer by Richard Wagner and Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss – and conducted by Riccardo Frizza. Giacomo Puccini’s ‘western’ opera, which was first performed in 1910 at the Metropolitan in New York, features Carmen Giannattasio, Angelo Villari and Claudio Sgura in the leading roles.

After its premiere in the French version at the Teatro Sociale in Bergamo for the Donizetti Festival, Jacopo Spirei’s Lucia di Lammermoor – which denounces society’s violence against women and reflects on the theme of mental health – makes its debut at the Comunale from 20 to 25 February in the Italian original. On the podium is Daniel Oren, a frequent guest of recent Felsina seasons. Donizetti’s masterpiece on a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano features Jessica Pratt in the title role; alongside her are Giovanni Sala and Lucas Meachem. The performance is a co-production with the Fondazione Teatro Donizetti di Bergamo.

The collaboration with the Teatro Regio di Parma and the Fondazione Rete lirica delle Marche also gave rise to the staging of Ballo in maschera in the reading by the rising young director – with experience also in the world of prose – Daniele Menghini, which will be staged at the Teatro Verdi in Busseto for the XXIV Festival Verdi next September and will be performed at the Nouveau from 13 to 19 April. A prestigious cast for this title, the second under the baton of Riccardo Frizza, with Fabio Sartori together with Anastasia Bartoli and Amartuvshin Enkhbat, both making their debut at the Comunale, and Silvia Beltrami.

The cycle of the Mozart/Da Ponte Trilogy signed by Alessandro Talevi and directed by Martijn Dendievel closes with the new production of Così fan tutte, following Le nozze di Figaro in 2023 and Don Giovanni in 2024. Mariangela Sicilia, Francesca Di Sauro, Marco Ciaponi and Nahuel Di Pierro sing on stage from 25 May to 1 June.

Candide, the 1956 comic operetta in two acts by Leonard Bernstein from the philosophical tale by Voltaire, will be performed for the first time in the history of the Comunale. The new production, realised together with the Teatro Verdi of Trieste where it will be staged in June, is signed by the dancer, choreographer and director Renato Zanella and will make its debut the following month at the Nouveau – from 4 to 12 July – conducted by the American Kevin Rhodes.

Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, an opera-oratorio in two acts based on a text by Jean Cocteau from Sophocles’ tragedy – translated from French into Latin by Jean Daniélou – composed in 1927, has been missing at the Comunale since 1968. It will be reread by actor and director Gabriele Lavia, returning after Verdi’s Otello in 2022. The new production, premiered from 7 to 12 October, will feature current TCBO Music Director Oksana Lyniv and the principal performers will include Lavia himself as narrator, and singers Paolo Antognetti and Claudio Otelli.

Lyniv will also be on the podium of the two operas in concert form that conclude the cycle of Richard Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen, which began this year at the Auditorium Manzoni: Siegfried (Siegfried) on 13 and 15 June, with soloists Peter Wedd, Claudio Otelli, Sorin Coliban and Sonja Šarić, and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) on 24 and 26 October, again with Wedd, Otelli and Šarić alongside Ewa Vesin and Atala Schöck.

Rounding out the 2025 Season in the autumn are two popular TCBO productions: Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème conceived by Graham Vick in 2018, winner of the “Abbiati” Prize, conducted by Belgian Martijn Dendievel at the helm of a vocal cast including Juliana Grigoryan, Stefan Pop, Giuliana Gianfaldoni and Davide Luciano, from 23 to 30 November. Finally, Il barbiere di Siviglia by Gioachino Rossini, directed by Federico Grazzini, in 2019 on stage in Bologna and on tour in Japan, with Renato Palumbo on the podium, with the Rossini voices of Aya Wakizono, Dave Monaco and Nicola Alaimo, from 19 to 30 December.

Also renewed for next year is the TCBO Club, dedicated to companies and individuals and to all enthusiasts who want to support the Theatre and actively participate in its cultural offerings, taking part in events and special moments and taking advantage of benefits and opportunities.
Info: www.tcbo.it

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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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