Press release – Opera and Ballet 2016/ 2017

La Fenice Opera House presents the 2016-2017 Opera and Ballet season, which will offer

thirteen new productions including one experimental opera composition, two opera plays for

children, a classical ballet and one contemporary dance recital, eight previous productions to be

repeated, for a total twenty-four titles and over one hundred and thirty performances.

The inauguration will be on November 4th, 2016 with “Aquagranda”, by Philip Perocco a world

premiere produced by La Fenice on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the flood of Venice.

Moreover, the playbill includes a special project dedicated to Monteverdi.

Two representations will be directed by Calixto Bieito: a new production of Wagner's

“Tannhäuser” and “Carmen” by Bizet conducted by Chung. A new staging of “Lucia di

Lammermoor” with Nadine Sierra in the leading role; “Gina” by Cilea will be rediscovered on

the occasion of the 150th since its composer’ birth; two representations will be dedicated to the

memory of Alfredo Casella seventy years after his death, namely “Cephalus and Procris” by

Ernst Krenek and “The tale of Orpheus” of Casella himself; a new production of Attila; two

plays are conceived for a young audience: “Romeo and Juliet” by Nicola Antonio Zingarelli and

“The pay rise” by Luciano Chailly. The season has been presented in Venice by the

superintendent of “La Fenice Foundation” Cristiano Chiarot and the artistic director Fortunato

Ortombina.

The inauguration premiere of “Aquagranda” by Philip Perocco, has a

libretto by Luigi Cerantola based on the novel by Roberto Bianchin - will be

entrusted to the baton of Marco Angius, while Damiano Michieletto will

be charged with the direction of the staging, implemented with the

support of the “Freundeskreis des Teatro La Fenice”.

The premiere is scheduled on November 4th, the same date as fifty

years ago, 1966, when the highest high-water ever occurred was FONDAZIONE TEATRO LA FENICE

recorded at 194 cm, causing a flood with disastrous consequences and heavy damages.

The following opera “Attila” by Giuseppe Verdi, was the second work the composer wrote for

the La Fenice Opera House, where it was staged for the first time on March 17, 1846. This opera

is Verdi’s most 'Venetian' work, also because it tells about the fleeing people from Aquileia

arriving on the island of “Rivo Alto” the modern Rialto, thus enacting the foundation of Venice.

The representation is a co-production with the “Teatro Comunale in Bologna” and “Teatro

Massimo of Palermo”, it will be conducted by Riccardo Frizza, directed by Daniele Abbado, for

the set design and the lights of Gianni Carluccio, who’s also costume designer with Daniela

Cernigliaro. As for the cast, Victoria Yeo will debut in the role of Odabella and the young Pavlo

Balakin will play Attila.

After twenty years “Tannhäuser” by Richard Wagner will be staged again at La Fenice, in a new

production directed by Calixto Bieito and conducted by Omer Meir Wellber, in a co-production

with the Opera of Antwerp, the “Vlaamse Opera” in Gent and the “Teatro Carlo Felice” in

Genoa. The Groβe Romantische Oper of the German composer will be presented in a mixed

version that combines the musical score of the 1845 “Dresden premiere” with the “Pariser

Bearbeitung” of 1861. The cast includes exceptional performers: Stefan Vinke in the leading role

and Liene Kinča as Elisabeth; Ausrine Stundyte will be Venus, while Christoph Pohl will sing as

Wolfram von Eschenbach.

La Fenice rediscovers Francesco Cilea – in the 150th from birth - proposing a small jewel of the

early period: “Gina”, the debut work by which the Calabrian composer completed his course of

studies at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella in Naples. The opera

seldom executed, will be conducted by Francesco Lanzillotta in a production

directed by Bepi Morassi, organized in collaboration with the School of

scenography of the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice as part of the project

"Atelier of La Fenice at the Malibran".

Romantic opera par excellence, “Lucia di Lammermoor” by Gaetano FONDAZIONE TEATRO LA FENICE

Donizetti, with a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano will be staged in a new production directed

by Francesco Micheli and the musical conducting of Riccardo Frizza, will involve Nadine Sierra

in the title role and Francesco Demuro as Edgardo of Ravenswood.

Claudio Monteverdi, "great musician" and innovator of musical language, was from Cremona by

birth but Venetian by adoption. The composer chose Venice as his ideal city, where he lived for

thirty years, working as a choirmaster of St. Mark's Basilica from 1613 until his death, receiving

the final honour of a burial in the Basilica of the Frari.

“The Orpheus”, “The Return of Ulysses to Ithaca” and “The Coronation of Poppea” are the only

titles of his opera production that endured in their almost original version and will be performed

for the first time in Venice in the span of a week in June 2017, to celebrate the four hundred and

fifty years since the composer's birth.

The musical direction of the project is committed to Sir John Eliot Gardiner, one of the greatest

contemporary interpreters of Monteverdi's music, who will lead the Monteverdi Choir and

Orchestra as well as a cast of young performers selected by the English master in three different

countries: England, France and Italy. The trilogy, presented in Venice as absolute preview, will be

later staged in several other European and American venues.

Furthermore La Fenice will present the first performance ever of “The fire art in music”,

experimental work by Fabrizio Plessi, one of the leading international exponents of video-art,

Plessi - who was born in Reggio Emilia but lived in Venice, where he graduated later becoming

professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts - is known and appreciated worldwide for its

use of video and electronics as creating materials in the same way as wood,

iron or marble, and his peculiar fascination with water and fire. Water, fire

and other primeval elements will indeed be at the center of the project for La

Fenice, developing a sort of exhibition path in the halls of the Theatre

made of lights, sounds and audio-video installations.

In 2017 recurs the 70th anniversary of the death of Alfredo Casella, FONDAZIONE TEATRO LA FENICE

who was an excellent pianist and composer as well as a tireless proponent and advocate of

contemporary music.

To remember his various features, La Fenice will put forward two titles for a single evening, both

presented at the Venice Biennale in the Thirties, when Casella was engaged in its organization.

The first one, “Cephalus and Procris” by the Austrian composer Ernst Krenek - a "pseudo

classic morality" in a prologue and three acts based on the Italian libretto by Rinaldo Küfferle -

debuted in 1934, indeed thanks to the invitation of the composer from Turin. The second, “The

tale of Orpheus”, debuted two years before in 1932 and is a chamber opera in one act by Casella

himself, with a libretto by Corrado Pavolini based on Angelo Poliziano. The diptych - a new

production of La Fenice in collaboration with the Biennale Arte 2017 - will be conducted by Tito

Ceccherini and will be directed by Valentino Villa.

As for the ballet, the season will offer a great classic: “The Sleeping Beauty” for the music by

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, in the choreographic version by Jean-Guillaume Bart from Marius

Petipa, that will be interpreted by the Corps de Ballet of the Rome Opera House, with David

Coleman leading the Orchestra of La Fenice Opera House.

Contemporary dance will instead be the protagonist during three performances of “Parsons

Dance”: the American ballet company, created by the genius of eclectic choreographer David

Parsons and the light designer Howell Binkley, presents in Venice some cult pieces from his

repertoire - such as the famous solo “Caught” for the music by Robert Fripp - along with two

other original music pieces for the European premiere.

Noteworthy are the two productions aimed at young audiences: “The pay

rise”, a single-act play by Luciano Chailly of 1996, based on the play by

Dino Buzzati, will be staged by director David Garattini, while “Romeo and

Juliet”, a musical drama of 1791 by the Neapolitan composer Nicola

Antonio Zingarelli, will be staged in a new production directed by

Francesco Bellotto. Both of these new La Fenice productions for young

people - made in collaboration with the Conservatory of Music FONDAZIONE TEATRO LA FENICE

Benedetto Marcello - will be conducted by Maurizio Dini Ciacci.

Eight earlier productions by La Fenice will be repeated in the 2016-2017 season. Bizet's Carmen

will be staged in the successful arrangement by Calixto Bieito, who won the “Abbiati Prize” for

the best Italian direction in 2011: this year it will be conducted by the prestigious baton of

Myung-Whun Chung and will have Veronica Simeoni and Roberto Aronica engaged in the key

roles of Carmen and Don José.

“The Sleepwalker” by Bellini will be proposed anew, according to the tested interpretation of

Bepi Morassi directed by Fabrizio Maria Carminati, with Shalvia Mukeria in the role of Count

Rodolfo and Irina Dubrovskaya in that of Amina.

Alongside two Rossini operas, “Opportunity makes the thief” and “The Barber of Seville”,

Verdi's “La Traviata” and Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” in the setting by Àlex Rigola and

Mariko Mori, La Fenice will also propose “La Bohème” by Puccini, directed by Francesco

Micheli, as well as Mozart's “Don Giovanni”, winner in 2011 of an “Abbiati Prize” (Paolo Fantin

and Carla Teti for the set design and costumes) and five “Opera Award” (including awards to

Damiano Michieletto for direction, Paolo Fantin for scenes, Carla Teti for the costumes and the

whole set-up as the best show of the 2010 season).

Of the twenty-four titles of this season, seventeen will be staged at La Fenice Opera House. As

for “Gina” by Francesco Cilea, the show of “Parsons Dance Company”, the diptych composed

of “Cephalus and Procris” by Ernst Krenek and “The tale of Orpheus” of Alfredo Casella, as

well as the two events for young people “The pay rise” of Luciano Chailly and “Romeo and

Juliet” by Nicola Antonio Zingarelli, will be staged at the Malibran Theatre.

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