I Lombardi alla prima Crociata, Il trovatore, Falstaff. Tutto nel mondo è burla, in three new stagings in Parma and Busseto, Nabucco in forma di concerto in Fidenza are the operas of the XIII edition of Festival Verdi, from September 16 to October al 16, 2023. The program is enriched by Messa da Requiem and Gala verdiano, part of the project “Viva Verdi” promoted by the Italian Ministry of Culture.
The three new stagings by Pier Luigi Pizzi, Davide Livermore, Manuel Renga will present Francesco Ivan Ciampa, Francesco Lanzillotta, Alessandro Palumbo as conductors. Giampaolo Bisanti will conduct Nabucco and Omer Meir Wellber the Gala Verdiano. A Choral concert and a Symphonic concert complete the Festival Verdi in Busseto. El Trovador the newly-commissioned opera in world premiere curated by Società dei Concerti di Parma, written and interpreted by the actor Marco Baliani, will debut in Parma. The charity gala Fuoco di gioia returns at Teatro Regio di Parma.
The protagonists onstage will be Lidia Fridman, Eleonora Buratto, Clementine Margaine, Riccardo Massi, Michele Pertusi, Antonio Poli, Giovanni Sala, Marco Spotti, Vladimir Stoyanov, Franco Vassallo, Markus Werba. The Festival renews the collaboration with La Toscanini, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, with Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma prompted by Martino Faggiani and with Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani.
The Festival will be inaugurated by the singers, dancers and actors of the Verdi Street Parade, which will bring in the city of Parma the joyous and cheerful spirit of Verdi Off.
The full program with all the shows, open rehearsals, concerts and meetings will be presented on May 9th, 2023 at Teatro Regio di Parma.
INAUGURATION
Verdi Off and Festival Verdi kick off with a great musical celebration in the streets of Parma: after its success in the 2019 edition, the itinerary show Verdi Street Parade returns on Saturday, September 16 from 6 pm to 9 pm to spread the celebrative spirit of Verdi Off, from Teatro Regio to the Oltretorrente region, with the performance of singers, dancers and actors.
OPERA SHOWS
I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata inaugurates the program of the XXIII Festival Verdi on Thrusday, September 21 at 8 pm at Teatro Regio di Parma (reruns: September 29, October 7 at 8 pm and October 15 at 3.30 pm), with its new staging directed by Pier Luigi Pizzi, who is also stage and costume designer for such an occasion. Francesco Lanzillotta will be conducting the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini and the Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma prompted by Martino Faggiani through the critical edition of the score curated by David R.B. Kimbell (prepared for The University of Chicago Press and Casa Ricordi), which will be premiered in Parma. The cast sees as protagonists Lidia Fridman (debuting in the role of Giselda), Antonio Poli (Oronte), Michele Pertusi (Pagano), Giovanni Sala (Arvino. Composed right after the triumph of the Nabucco, the fourth melodramma by Giuseppe Verdi is inspired by the epic poem in fifteen chants written by Tommaso Grossi, published in 1826 and admired by Alessandro Manzoni. The libretto by Temistocle Solera articulates the action in four parts, each one with its own title – La vendetta, L’uomo della caverna, La conversione, Il Santo Sepolcro – giving a charming, epic dimension to the melodrama. On February 11 of 1843, the night of the debut at Teatro alla Scala, the audience acclaimed the new with enthusiasm and transformed the career of Verdi in an unstoppable force.
Teatro Giuseppe Verdi di Busseto will host Falstaff: Tutto nel mondo è burla on Friday, September 22 at 8 pm (reruns: September 30 at 8 pm, October 8 at 3.30 pm, October 14 at 8 pm). The show will present the Verdian masterpiece in a renewed form, a successful concept experimented in the latest edition of the festival with Rigoletto e la maledizione. In fact, such a show counts on the very same creative team: Manuel Renga is the director of the staging and scenic design by Aurelio Colombo, while Alessandro Palumbo manages a special show that will present the whole opera in a chamber, intimate dimension interpreted by the Wind-sor Ensemble and arranged by the Palumbo himself. The cast sees Franco Vassallo in the role of the protagonist and includes various young singers and ex-students of the advanced specialization singing course of Accademia Verdiana (Corso di Alto perfezionamento in repertorio verdiano), many of which have already been pursuing a successful career. Falstaff – whose composition started in1890 and finished when Verdi was almost 80 years old – closes the Verdian catalogue and represents a unique example of his mature composition style, after the youthful Un giorno di regno. “It’s been forty that I’ve wished to write a comic opera – wrote Verdi in 1890 – and it’s been fifty years that I’ve known Le allegre comari di Windsor; also… the usual “buts” that I find everywhere and that have always opposed to the satisfaction of this desire of mine.” Encouraged by the success of Otello, Arrigo Boito managed to convince the composer to work on a new libretto based on a Shakespearian subject. Falstaff was finally staged on February 9 of 1893 at Teatro alla Scala di Milano, gathering the awe of the audience and the applauses of Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni.
Il trovatore is the lyrical drama in four parts with libretto by Salvadore Cammarano and the third title in program at Teatro Regio di Parma on Sunday, September 24 at 8 pm (reruns: October 1 at 3.30, October 5 and 12 at 8 pm) in the new staging by Davide Livermore, for the first time at Teatro Regio and at Festival Verdi. Co-produced together with Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the opera will be present by Francesco Ivan Ciampa conducting the Orchestra e del Coro del Teatro Comunale di Bologna prompted by Gea Garatti Ansini. The critical edition of the score is by David Lawton. The protagonist onstage: Eleonora Buratto (debuting in the role of Leonora), Riccardo Massi (Manrico), Markus Werba (debuting in the role of Conte di Luna), Clementine Margaine (Azucena), Marco Spotti (Ferrando). Structured in four parts, each one with its own (Il duello, La gitana, Il figlio della gitana, Il supplizio), such an opera was first staged between 1851 and 1853 at Teatro Apollo di Roma gathering a lot of success. The composer chose the libretto of the drama El Trovador by Antonio Garcìa Gutiérrez as the subject of the opera, defining it “beautiful, imaginative and with powerful situations.”
Festival Verdi presents once again the Nabucco in its concert form at Teatro Girolamo Magnani di Fidenza on Thursday, September 28 and on Friday, October 6 at 8 pm with the Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini conducted by Giampaolo Bisanti, the Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma prompted by Martino Faggiani and the Vladimir Stoyanov in the role of Nabucco. The critical edition is curated by Roger Parker. Nabucco is the third opera by Giuseppe Verdi: he composed it between 1841 and 1842 after a particularly dire and painful period after the fiasco of Un giorno di regno, the death of his wife Margherita Barezzi and of his two children. Such events brought Verdi far from musical composition up until when the entrepreneur Bartolomeo Merelli proposed the libretto by Temistocle Solera as a new subject, convincing him to write music for a new opera. It is exactly after the premiere of Nabucco at Teatro alla Scala on March 9, 1842 – with his future wife Giuseppina Strepponi in the role of Abigaille – that the career of Verdi was written in the stone.
CONCERTS AND SHOWS
The Messa da Requiem is Verdi’s masterpiece of sacred music. The Mass will be performed at Teatro Regio on September 23 of 2023 at 8.00 pm, in its critical edition by David B. Rosen. A splendid, monumental composition written during Verdi’s period of isolation from the opera genre following the success of Aida. Dedicated to Alessandro Manzoni, Messa da Requiem reflects the spirituality of the composer as well as the dialogue between sacred and profane appearing in his opera works, though remaining a mystery regarding his most intimate beliefs.
Fuoco di gioia, the traditional charity opera gala of the festival organized by Gruppo Appassionati Verdiani “Club dei 27”, returns to Teatro Regio in Parma on September 27, 2023, at 8.00 pm, with the friendly participation of the most famous performers accompanied by choir and orchestra.
On Tuesday, October 10 at 8 pm, the traditional Gala Verdiano closes the celebrations of the 210th anniversary from Verdi’s birth, with the direction of Omer Meir Wellber and as protagonists onstage of Teatro di Parma the most beloved Verdian interpreters in parallel with Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini and Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma prompted by Martino Faggiani. The concert is supported by Reggio Parma Festival and it’s part of the project “Viva Verdi” promoted by the Italian Ministry of Culture. The celebrations will begin with the traditional event Cerimonia in onore di Verdi in Piazza della Pace, where the monument to Giuseppe Verdi stands out. The event will count on the participation of the institutions and of the citizens associations, rejoicing on the notes of the “Va pensiero” together with Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma and Corale Giuseppe Verdi.
Teatro Verdi di Busseto will host two events with the artistic ensembles from Parma: a program dedicated to the most beloved choral pages written by Verdi will be interpreted by Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma conducted by Martino Faggiani in the special concert Concerto corale, scheduled for Sunday, October 1 at 8 pm; Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini will be the protagonist of the Concerto sinfonico on Friday, October 13 at 8 pm.
On Friday, October 13 at 8.30 pm at Teatro Regio di Parma, a newly-commissioned opera in world premiere: the El trovador, curated by Società dei Concerti di Parma, written and interpreted by the actor Marco Baliani. Music prose intertwine on the themes from the Verdian opera, interpreted by Filarmonici di Busseto, giving a voice to the nocturnal torments of Leonora and Azucena.
ACCADEMIA VERDIANA 2023
The final concert, Concerto finale dell’Accademia Verdiana, closes the 2023 Festival Verdi on Monday, October 16 at 8 pm at Teatro Regio di Parma. Onstage, the 12 students of the advanced specialization course for singers (Corso di alto perfezionamento in repertorio verdiano) celebrating the end of their course and their musical, vocal and theatrical formation with the most renowned Verdian interpreters.
Accademia Verdiana was born in 2017 as a project co-funded by Regione Emilia-Romagna and European Union. The academy presents nine months of individual and group lessons pivoting on the study and perfectioning of the vocal technique, on seminars dedicated to choreographic and scenic movement, on meetings, lectures and classes dedicated to historiographical, contractual and managerial subjects in order to form a complete version of a lyrical artist.
The didactic director of the 2023 edition is Francesco Izzo. He is a musicologist, pianist and coach, musicology professor at the Università of Southampton, where he teaches music history and theory. Izzo is the scientific director of Festival Verdi since 2017.
VERDI OFF
The purpose of Verdi Off is stimulating, creating and sharing a festive atmosphere that embraces those who live and those who visit the lands of the Maestro on the occasion of the Verdi Festival. Verdi Off is a series of free events in parallel with Festival Verdi, which Teatro Regio Parma has been working on since 2016 with Comune di Parma and with the support of the Associazione “Parma, io ci sto!”. The eighth edition of Verdi Off will begin with Verdi Street Parade and will continue with a rich calendar of events including concerts, exhibitions, installations, meetings and special projects involving local artists and associations. This year, two great innovations are the fulcres of the event: in Piazzale Picelli, where a yurt tent will host meetings and shows for children and families; the Wopa in via Palermo, which will be the reference point for the younger audience.
Verdi Off is always in touch with the most fragile realities such as places of care and suffering, hospitals, prisons, nursing homes and the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Once again, the festival reconfirms its mission and brings the joy of music to such an audience, reconfirming its strong social commitment.
The complete Verdi Off calendar will be presented in the upcoming months.
