Teatro Regio di Parma: Adriana Lecouvreur

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by OPERA Charm Team
March 11, 2023

Francesco Cilea's opera, absent from the Teatro Regio di Parma for 42 years, is staged under the direction of Italo Nunziata and conducted by Francesco Ivan Ciampa, in a co-production with Teatro Comunale di Modena and Teatro Municipale di Piacenza.

March 24th, 26th, 31st, 2023, 8.00 p.m.
April 2nd, 2023, 3.30 p.m.

BIOGRAPHY

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INTERVIEW

Adriana Lecouvreur, opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea, on a libretto by Arturo Colautti, returns to the Teatro Regio di Parma after an absence of 42 years, on Friday, March 24th, 2023, at 8.00 p.m. (performances on Sunday, March 26th, 8.00 p.m., Friday, March 31st, 8.00 p.m., Sunday, April 2nd, 3.30 p.m.), for the Opera Season 2023. The production, co-produced with Teatro Comunale di Modena and Teatro Municipale di Piacenza, is directed by Italo Nunziata, the sets by Emanuele Sinisi, the costumes by Artemio Cabassi, and the lights by Fiammetta Baldiserri. Francesco Ivan Ciampa conducts the Orchestra dell’Emilia-Romagna Arturo Toscanini and the Choir of the Teatro Regio di Parma, prepared by Martino Faggiani.

In the cast, Maria Teresa Leva (Adriana Lecouvreur), Riccardo Massi (Maurizio), Adriano Gramigni (Principe di Bouillon), Saverio Pugliese (L’abate di Chazeuil, for the first time at the Teatro Regio), Claudio Sgura (Michonnet), Stefano Consolini (Poisson), Steponas Zonys (Quinault, for the first time at the Teatro Regio), Sonia Ganassi (making her debut in the role of the Princess of Bouillon), Vittoriana De Amicis (Mademoiselle Jouvenot), Carlotta Vichi (Mademoiselle Dangeville).

Inspired by the historical figure of the French actress Adrienne Lecouvreur, from whom Eugène Scribe and Ernest-Wilfrid Legouvé drew the 1849 drama of the same name, the opera saw the light between 1899 and 1902 and debuted with great success in November 1902, at the Teatro Lirico in Milan, conducted by Cleofonte Campanini from Parma, and with Angelica Pandolfini and Enrico Caruso in the lead roles. It was Cilea himself who chose the subject of the opera: “the variety of action,’ wrote the composer, ‘that could offer me new and elegant situations, the fusion of comedy and drama in the setting of the 18th-century environment (which I knew well), the passionate love of the protagonist, touched my heart and ignited my imagination”.

The parallel between real life and artistic life is at the heart of Adriana’s story, which this production chooses to move from the original 18th-century setting to the 1950s: amidst worldly events, glossy magazines and glamorous atmospheres, the characters move in a world of appearances, obsessions and jealousies, where the boundaries between theatre rules and social rules, stage and real life, become increasingly blurred to the point of blurring. “Adriana lives in the world of theatre. She is its undisputed queen,” explains director Italo Nunziata. Like all actors or most of them, she lives only for those few hours on stage, in a social microcosm whose rules of behaviour and play she knows perfectly well. Having left this protective womb, she finds herself in a world that does not follow the planned script, and at that stage of life, there are actors who are much better and more prepared than her to play their roles. The result is an estrangement that, Nunziata continues, finds visual expression in a unified scenic space: “a sort of room/stage, cut diagonally by the image of a large torn curtain, like a torn diaphragm that allows the passage from the stage of the theatre to the stage of life without a break”.

PRIMA CHE SI ALZI IL SIPARIO
The composer, the style, and the genesis of the opera are some of the themes explored by Giuseppe Martini in Prima che si alzi il sipario, Saturday, March 18th 2023, 5 p.m., at the Ridotto of the Teatro Regio in Parma, with the participation of soprano Sara Mihali and baritone Takeshi Sawachi, students at the Conservatorio di Musica Arrigo Boito in Parma, accompanied on piano by Nicola Mottaran—musical coordination by Donatella Saccardi.

OPEN REHEARSALS
The rehearsals of Adriana Lecouvreur are open to the public in the days leading up to the debut: crucial moments in which the complex work on stage and behind the scenes finds a fascinating synthesis. The rehearsal on Monday, March 20th 2023, at 8.00 p.m., is reserved for the under-30 audience, while the rehearsal on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023, at 3.30 p.m., is open to the public.

ADRIANA LECOUVREUR LIVE ON OPERASTREAMING
The performance on Friday, March 24th, 2023, at 8.00 p.m., will be broadcast live on operastreaming.com, the free portal of the Emilia-Romagna Region developed in collaboration with EDUNOVA-University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. The work, available with Italian and English subtitles, will remain available on the platform for the following six months after the broadcast.

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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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