68TH SPOLETO OPERA SEASON

TEATRO LIRICO SPERIMENTALE DI SPOLETO “A. BELLI”

Press release

30^th June 2014

GAMBLING AT THE OPERA
AMONG COMMON GOODS AND COMMON SPACES, GIANNI SCHICCHI BY PUCCINI AND ALFRED, ALFRED BY DONATONI

THE 68^th  OPERA SEASON 2014

FROM 12^th SEPTEMBER TO 15^th OCTOBER 2014

ANOTHER CHALLENGE BETWEEN CONTEMPORARY MUSIC AND THE XX CENTURY MUSIC IN SEPTEMBER AT SPOLETO. PAOLO ROSSI RETURNS AS DIRECTOR OF GIANNI SCHICCHI AND ALFRED, ALFRED, CONDUCTED BY MARCO ANGIUS. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN SPOLETO MARCO MARTINELLI, ERMANNA MONTANARI AND TEATRO DELLE ALBE.
LYRICS AND DIRECTION ARE SIGNED BY MARCO MARTINELLI FOR TWO CONTEMPORANEOUS OPERAS THAT WERE SET TO MUSIC BY CRISTIAN CARRARA PERFORMED IN ABSOLUTE WORLD PREMIERE. The conductor is FLAVIO EMILIO SCOGNA.
THE CYCLE OF THE 18^TH CENTURY INTERLUDES CONTINUES THIS SEASON AS WELL. IT’S THE TIME OF “SERPILLA E BACOCCO” BY GIUSEPPE MARIA ORLANDINI, THE DIRECTOR IS ADAMO LORENZETTI AND THE CONDUCTOR IS FRANCESCO MASSIMI.

      Conductors: Flavio Emilio Scogna, Francesco Massimi and Marco Angius
Directors: Marco Martinelli, Adamo Lorenzetti, Paolo Rossi, Giorgio Bongiovanni

PREVIEW OF THE SEASON DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THE LAWYER CARLO BELLI, PRESIDENT OF THE INSTITUTION IN THE OCCASION OF HUNDRED YEARS FROM HIS BIRTH .  IT WILL TAKE PLACE THE 12^TH AND THE 13^TH AUGUST WITH THE USUAL MUSICAL KERMESSE “EINE KLEINE KLOSTERMUSIK (3) 2014”, A MUSICAL VOYAGE BETWEEN OPERA AND OPERETTA WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF MUSICAL BANDS, SINGERS, ACTORS FOR FAMOUS HIGHLIGHTS OF OPERETTE, UNRELEASED MUSICAL WORKS ANDREADINGS FROM THE MEMORIES OF THE WELL-KNOWN SOPRANO GEMMA BELLINCIONI. MUSICAL FANTASIAS WILL BE PERFORMED AT THE SAME TIME IN THE VARIOUS SPACES AVAILABLE AT THE COMPLESSO S. NICOLO’ IN SPOLETO.

the diptych “Gianni Schicchi” and “Alfred, Alfred” after THE PERFORMANCE IN Spoleto, WILL BE ON STAGE IN A REGIONAL TOUR In perugia, Assisi, Todi, Città di Castello and Orvieto. A renewed collaboration with Segni Barocchi Festival OF Foligno with the preview  of “Serpilla e Bacocco” on 18^th September.

VOCAL CONCERTS AT THE FESTIVAL DEI 2MONDI DI SPOLETO (10^TH JULY, 7 PM, AT SALA FRAU) AND AT THE FESTIVAL DELLE NAZIONI DI CITTA’ DI CASTELLO (TEATRO DEI RICOMPOSTI DI ANGHIARI, 3^RD SEPTEMBER AT 9 PM). TRIBUTE TO CHRISTINA QUEEN OF SWEDEN IN SPOLETO AND ROME ON THE OCCASION OF THE EUROPEAN PROJECT OF WHICH THE TEATRO LIRICO SPERIMENTALE IS PARTNER.

Spoleto, 30 June 2014. The Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto “A. Belli” with its programme of the Season 2014 has been confirmed theatre of experimentation of voices and new musical theatrical operas. Also this year, the musical theatre of our time will receive a great attention thanks to the on purpose commissions of new operas that will have their absolute world premiere in Spoleto.

The lyrics and the direction of the inaugural production of the 68th Sperimental Lyrical Season are signed by Marco Martinelli, historical founder of the Teatro delle Albe di Ravenna, which was recently awarded the UBU prize, the greatest theatrical recognition of Italy, for the playwriting of the theatrical show “Pantani”. The diptych will be actually presented on the occasion of the multiannual project OPERA NOVA and it was commissioned on purpose by the Institution. It is composed of two musical works, “Il giocatore” (The gambler) and “Canzone dei luoghi comuni” (The song of common spaces), composed by Cristian Carrara, with their absolute world premiere on Friday 12^th September 2014 (at 8.30 pm) at the Teatro del Complesso Monumentale di S. Nicolò of Spoleto. The following performances of the show will take place on Saturday 13^th (at 8.30 pm) and on Sunday 14^th (at 5 pm). The director will be Flavio Emilio Scogna well-known musician of the contemporary repertoire, while the winning singers of the Spoleto Vocal Contests of the European Community Competition will participate in the opera production, performing together with the actress Ermanna Montanari, co-founder of the Teatro delle Albe with Martinelli, and with Alessandro Argnani. “While inventing the diptych of this “opera nova”, commissioned by the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto, Ermanna Montanari and I, allied to the delicate and powerful music by Cristian Carrara, created it around this earsplitting, double movement” – the director Marco Martinelli explains this way the creative process that brought to the score of the theatrical work and he continues – “The name of the first opera of the diptych  is Il giocatore (The gambler), and tells the story of the vertiginous fall of a slot machine player, a dive into gambling, where every emotional relationship is sacrificed in the name of nothing; the second one is Canzone dei luoghi comuni (The song of common spaces), and it overturns the negativity of the usual expression in a collective ballet where the “place” where one lives is a place of common sharing, a “common” space, actually, made of songs and children joyful voices and bread shared all together”.

“The intention is to create a diptych of works one in front of the other as if they were at the mirror. On one side “Il giocatore”, a dramatic and terribly contemporary opera, where one can experience the fall into hell of a man who is destroyed by compulsive gambling and all kind of affective relationships are sacrificed in the name of the deepest vacuity of meanings. At the same time “Canzone dei luoghi comuni”, where through the game, the play and the dance are the instruments that fully express the beauty of the human being and the general meaning of life. Two different operas, composed for the same orchestral distribution, and conceived to be complementary. The music itself seems to be forged in the name of the same principle. On one side a scratching and cold opera, on the other side, one of the most sincere and celestial Opera”. With these words the composer Cristian Carrara explained his musical choices that brought to the composition of the diptych.

In collaboration with Libera Spoleto e Libera Umbria a round table was scheduled for Saturday 13^th September (at 5 pm). Experts studying the concerning Italian phenomenon of gambling will participate in the event, like Marco Dotti (author of two books on the topic “Slot City” and “Il calcolo dei dati”) and Riccardo Bonacina (director and founder of “Vita non profit magazine”) aiming at raising the spectators’ and young people awareness on compulsive gambling.

Gambling will be the main character also of the path dedicated to the “forgotten” repertoire: “Serpilla e Bacocco” the interludes by Giuseppe Maria Orlandini whose libretto is by Antonio Salvi. Also this year the director of the Ensemble of the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale will be Francesco Massimi, while the director is Adamo Lorenzetti. Recently she had a great success at the Lyrical Season 2013 during which she directed “Doglie” moral operina of “Opera Nova”.

The shows will take place at the Piccolo Teatro Di San Nicolò (Sala Superiore) in Spoleto on Friday 19^th September (at 9 pm). Its replicas will be on Saturday 20^th (at 9 pm) and on Sunday 21^th (at 5 pm) with a preview at the Auditorium di Santa Caterina di Foligno for Segni Barocchi Festival on the 18^th September (at 9.15 pm).

However, the Institution doesn’t forget the annual appointment with “Eine Kleine Klostermusik (3) 2014”, show and musical kermesse organized by Giorgio Bongiovanni and Michelangelo Zurletti, in collaboration with the Comune di Spoleto. This year the two concerts of 12^th and 13^th August (at 6 pm) at the Complesso Monumentale di San Nicolò will be dedicated to the voyage between opera and operetta, in order to remember the hundredth birthday of the lawyer Carlo Belli, president of the Institution, who died last March. The Musical Concert “Francesco Morlacchi” of Cannara will be the frame of the event. During this event, also the famous singer of the past Gemma Bellincioni will be honored  with the performance of well-known opera arias. The operetta will be the main character in the Sala Superiore with sung and played pieces. An unusual musical voyage at the excellent Complesso di S. Nicolò where the public will decide in an absolutely freely way to visit the space and to assist to the shows and performances that will take part there simultaneously.

On Wednesday 24th September (at 9 pm) at the Piccolo Teatro di San Nicolò (Sala Superiore), a night dedicated to the liederistic will be organized. Also this year “Lieder & Lieder 9” is a precious occasion to listen to “Die schöne Müllerin”, a cycle of twenty lieders composed by Franz Schubert in 1823 and based on the texts of the romantic poet Wilhelm Müller. “La Bella Mugnaia” will be performed according to the original execution conceived by Michelangelo Zurletti and by the director Giorgio Bongiovanni in a show with many images that will accompany the spectator in the atmosphere and in the history of the young man in love. The Bulgarian baritone Alec Avedissian, winner of the 67^th

Concorso Europeo per Giovani Cantati Lirici, will perform with an actor who will play some pieces of the score, that were translated into Italian on purpose.

The Teatro Lirico Sperimentale on the occasion of 150 years from the inauguration of the Teatro Nuovo di Spoleto (1864 – 2014) at the closing of the Season presents an original diptych. It will have an opera of the beginning of the XX Century and another one of the new millennium. “Gianni Schicchi” by Giacono Puccini, inspired to the 30^th Canto of the Hell by Dante Alighieri, will be juxtaposed with “Alfred, Alfred” by Franco Donatoni, where hell is represented by his recovery at the hospital, when he was hospitalized because of a diabetic coma. This is the source of inspiration of the opera.

The direction of O.T.Li.S. – Orchestra of the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale will be given to Marco Angius, among the most well-known directors and strong reference point for the contemporaneous and twentieth-century music: “The drained style of the opera by Donatoni, the instrumental score of the vocal acrobatics that are in contrast with the comic silence of the main character, the great number of vocal microorganisms in an ensemble that also comprises eighteenth-century plucked string instruments: these are the distinctive elements of the minimalist opera of Donatoni. During the grotesque scenes of “Alfred, Alfred”, the irony of Donatoni becomes the ideal play-writing material, extremely flexible, with an implacable formal geometry of panels juxtaposed like television sketches; their scenes show improbable doctors and nurses helping the diabetic composer, with surreal monologues during the interludes that accompany every scene. At the end there will be the closing exhilarant Italian concert. The interludes, in which these almost Fellinian characters appear, are characterized by effects of spoken/tuned (Sprechgesang). They are turned into fictitious duets with instruments/characters that often mock certain commonplaces of the Italian lyrical opera”.

For the diptych Puccini/Donatoni, the actor Paolo Rossi comes back to Spoleto. He made his debut in the lyrical direction with the Umbrian Institution in 2010 in “Il matrimonio Segreto” by Domenico Cimarosa. Ironical and pungent like the themes of the two operas, he will propose an original direction inspired to the circus. 

The two operas will be performed at the Teatro Nuovo from Tuesday 23^th September with a preview at 6 pm (the local high schools are welcomed).

After it, there will be two recitals for the Primary and Secondary schools of Spoleto, Foligno and other cities of the region. They will be performed on the 24^th and 25^th (at 10 am), after which the winners of the Contest 2013 “Chi è di scena? – Le scuole all’opera” will be rewarded. Every year the contest enjoys the enthusiastic participation of young students and this is a way to get them closer to the lyrical opera, not in a traditional way.

The students, actually, are asked to present compositions, articles, reports or draws on the opera that they saw. They will be rewarded during the next lyrical season.

From Friday 26^th September (at 8.30) the diptych Puccini/Donatoni will make its debut in a general way. Its replicas will be on Saturday 27^th (at 8.30) and on Sunday (at 5 pm). Next there will be the Stagione Lirica Regionale 2014: on Monday 29^th and on Tuesday 30^th September (at 8.30 pm) at the Morlacchi Theatre in Perugia, on Wednesday 1^st October (at 8.30 pm) at the Teatro Lyrick di Assisi, on 2^nd October (at 8.30)  at the Teatro degli Illuminati di Città di Castello, on Friday 3^rd  October at the Teatro Comunale di Todi (at 8.30 pm) and on Saturday 4^th at the Teatro Mancinelli di Orvieto (at 9 pm).

The Season closing of the Institution will benefit from the really waited participation in the European project dedicated to the cultivated and bold queen Christina of Sweden in collaboration with the Royal Festivals in Stockholm (coordinator of the project), the Barock Akademie in Vienna and the Foundation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris.

The project aims at exalting the figure of the queen that, after having renounced the throne, left Sweden in 1655. She traveled across some parts of Europe and Italy, until she arrived in Rome. She also stopped in Umbria and in Spoleto.

The singers and the instrumentalist of the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale will be the main characters of a concert program with music by Corelli, Marazzoli, Pasquini, Purcell, Rossi, Tenaglia, A. Scarlatti and Stradella in two appointments: in Rome, at the salone d’Ercole di Palazzo Farnese on Monday 13^th (at 8 pm) and on 14^th October (at 8 pm) at the Complesso Monumentale di San Nicolò.

On Wednesday 15^th October at the Complesso di San Nicolò the conference “Cristina di Svezia e le arti visive” will be held at 5 pm with the coordination of Professor Bruno Toscano and the participation of Silvia Danesi Squarzina, Professor at the Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia de la Sapienza – Università di Roma, and of the Emeritus professor at the Università Normale di Pisa Adriano Prosperi. Together they will explain the figure of Christina of Sweden from an historical and artistic point of view. The project is part of the cultural program “Strand 1.2.1” financed by the European Union. The main representative is Royal Festivals, Accademia Musicale del Palazzo Reale di Stoccolma.

The winning singers of the Contests “Comunità Europea” per Giovani Cantanti Lirici and some voices selected through free auditions will participate in the Season: the tenors Giuseppe Distefano, Marco Rencinai and Edoardo Milletti (all winners in 2012), the bass Massimiliano Mandozzi and the bass baritone Biagio Pizzuti (2014), the baritones Alec Avedissian (2013), Tommaso Barea (2014), Andrea Tabili (2014) and Sergio Vitale (2010). In addition, the sopranos Rosaria Fabiana Angotti (2014), Annalisa Ferrarini (2013) and Chiara Margarito (2013), the mezzo-sopranos Katarzyna Otczyk (2011) and Chiara Tirotta (2014). Also the Piccolo Coro dei bambini del Teatro Lirico Sperimentale will be on stage for the project “Opera Nova”.

The Teatro Lirico continues committing in recognizing the value of young talented artists also in the field of visual art confirming the collaboration with Ester Grossi, author of the manifesto of the Season. She has already collaborated with the Institution for the 65^th, 66^th and 67^th lyrical Season. The artistic collaboration with Chiara Coccorese, author of the “Madonna del Parto” for Doglie , part of the diptych “Opera Nova” 2013, continues. Also this year she signs the images of “Canzone dei luoghi comuni” and “Il giocatore” and those of “Gianni Schicchi” and “Alfred, Alfred”. 

The Lyrical Season and the activities of the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto are possible thanks to the support of the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo – Direzione Generale Spettacolo dal Vivo, Regione Umbria, Provincia di Perugia, Comune di Spoleto, and to the contribution of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Spoleto.

The event is also supported by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Perugia, Banca Popolare di Spoleto, Casse di Risparmio dell’Umbria, Camera di Commercio di Perugia, Mrs. Nicoletta Braibanti Valletti,  Fondazione Francesca, Valentina e Luigi Antonini.

We thank for the collaboration Segni Barocchi Festival di Foligno, Festival dei 2Mondi di Spoleto, Festival delle Nazioni di Città di Castello, i Comuni di Perugia, Assisi, Città di Castello, Todi, Orvieto, Foligno, Riano Romano, Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Riano, Associazione “Amici della Lirica” di Perugia, VUS Valle Umbra Servizi Spa, Monini Spa, Coop Centro Italia e Libera – Associazione, nomi e numeri contro le mafie.