On 24, 25 and 27 January and 8 February the Mariinsky Theatre will be staging the premiere of Gaetano Donizetti’s “melodramma giocoso”L’elisir d’amore. On 24 January the performance will feature Anna Netrebko (Adina) and Erwin Schrott (Dulcamara). On 27 January the role of Adina will also be performed by Anna Netrebko.
The Mariinsky Theatre has staged Donizetti’s comic opera for the first time in recent history (the opera has previously been staged on three occasions by the St Petersburg Imperial Theatres in the 19th century). The theatre chose renowned French stage director Laurent Pelly and designer Chantal Thomas to mount this version, a co-production of the Opéra de Paris and the Royal Opera House in London. Pelly and Thomas’ L’elisir d’amore has been acclaimed as one of the greatest European productions ever.
The roles are being rehearsed by: Zhanna Dombrovskaya, Oxana Shilova, Lyudmila Dudinova and Karina Chepurnova (Adina); Yevgeny Akimov, Sergei Skorokhodov, Dmitry Voropaev and Nikolai Yemtsov (Nemorino); Vladimir Moroz, Vladislav Sulimsky and Viktor Korotich (Belcore); Andrei Serov, Vladimir Felyauer and Nikolai Kamensky as Dulcamara; and Svetlana Kisileva, Elena Ushakova and Larisa Yelina as Giannetta. The Mariinsky Theatre premiere will be conducted by Luciano di Martino. The musical preparation for the performance has been supervised by Irina Soboleva and the Principal Chorus Master is Andrei Petrenko.
Christian Räth, Stage Director of the Mariinsky Theatre production, said that “The plot unfolds in the 1960s: this brings the opera closer to us without distorting its ideas. I think that people of any age have always been delighted at new ideas that could magically alter their lives. One of the protagonists – Dulcamara – is selling a drink that makes people fall in love. Today we can see the same thing – on the internet, on TV, in newspapers – everywhere we can see things that purport to make our lives easier.”
© 2011 by lucianodimartino.com 