The Opera Season of Municipal Theater of Piacenza continues with The two Foscari Of Giuseppe Verdion stage Friday 3 May at 8 pm Sunday 5 May at 3.30pm. The preview aimed at schools is scheduled for Tuesday 30 April at 3.30 pm.
An opera considered among the most musically refined by early Verdi, 180 years after its first performance at the Teatro Argentina in Rome on 3 November 1844, it will be directed by Matteo Beltrami at his new Verdi debut, on the podium of the Emilia-Romagna Arturo Toscanini Orchestra, with the Choir of the Teatro Municipale of Piacenza prepared by Corrado Casati. The title will be proposed in the staging already appreciated on important stages, signed by Joseph Franconi Leewith sets and costumes by William Orlandilights of Valerio Alfiericollaborating director Daniela Zedda and choreographies by Raffaella Renziin a new production of the Fondazione Teatri di Piacenza with the Fondazione Teatro Comunale di Modena.
The singing company is of excellence, with the return of the baritone to the Municipale of Piacenza Luca Salsi like Francesco Foscari, in the production that marked his debut in the role of the Doge in 2011 in Trieste, the tenor Luciano Ganci for the first time in the part of Jacopo Foscari, the soprano Marigona Qerkezi like Lucrezia Contarini, a role in which she was applauded in prestigious theatres. They complete the cast Antonio Di Matteo (Jacopo Loredano), Marcello Nardis (Barbarigo), Ilaria Alida Quilico (Pisa), Manuel Pierattelli (Infantryman), Eugenio Maria Degiacomi (Servant of the Doge).
The two Foscari, with a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play of the same name by Lord Byron, set in the Venice of the Doges of 1457, is an opera pervaded by a tragic tone that focuses the drama on the conflict between affections and duty of Francesco Foscari, “prince and father” as he defines himself, whose son Jacopo is accused of treason. The political dimension and the intimate, personal story are the two aspects that characterize this work, which Verdi in a letter to Piave describes as “a beautiful subject, delicate and very pathetic”.
The composer, fresh from the successes of Nabucco and gods Lombardi at the first crusade, began to take Foscari’s idea into consideration in 1843 for Venice, but the Teatro La Fenice induced him to shelve the project because it was too risky for the city where descendants of the Council of Ten, so negatively portrayed in the work, still resided. The choice therefore fell on Ernania title successfully performed on 9 March 1844 in Venice, but Verdi did not forget The two Foscari and for the subsequent commission at the Teatro Argentina in Rome he returned to Byron’s drama. Verdi and the librettist Piave designed an opera of internal struggles, where injustice and political power predominate, played on the characters’ characters rather than on the action, which already contains in nuce many elements that the composer will develop later.
Waiting for the two Foscari: as usual, the students of the Liceo Respighi of Piacenza will introduce the work to the public, who on Thursday May 2 at 6 pm in the Sala dei Teatini they will present the Verdi title in the cycle’s appointment #AperiOperafree entry, in a multidisciplinary journey, including acting, music, insights, connections with current events.
For information and tickets: Municipal Theater ticket office: tel. 0523 385720/21 – [email protected]
Photo: Gianni Cravedi
