Seville, Oct 29 (EFE).- The Teatro de la Maestranza opens its opera season next week by staging ‘Turandot’, a posthumous work by Giacomo Puccini, with which it pays tribute to the hundred years since his death and which represents “the connection of Italian poetry with modernity.”
This was stated by Javier Menéndez, director of the Sevillian theater, who recalled in the presentation of the work that this Wednesday the ‘Puccini Gala’, with the soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and the tenor Piotr Beczala, together with the Royal Symphony Orchestra of Seville and under the direction of the Canadian Keri-Lynn Wilson, it will review the figure of the “last great Italian operaist.”
This production of ‘Turandot’ brings for the third time to the Maestranza since its premiere at La Fenice in Venice in 1987 the story of a “cruel and cold” Chinese princess who rejects her suitors and challenges them with a series of tests that are impossible for her to complete. get your love.
According to Menéndez, a link is also proposed with the tribute to the heroines with the story of Liù, the slave in love with Prince Calaf who begs alongside Timur, king of the Tatars, and who “is the character that humanizes” the opera.
The Italian Gianluca Marciano takes charge of the musical direction to address “the testament” and “the masterpiece” of Puccini, both from the point of view of “an immense and very complete orchestra” and with “moments of great intimacy”, has said.
“It is a work conceived as in a single breath, musically everything is linked and at the end of each aria you sense what follows, it is an anticipation of what is coming behind,” highlighted Marciano, who insisted that “there is no moment of rest”
He has reviewed that Puccini, despite his illness, had not appointed anyone to finish the work, which was completed by Franco Alfano, and has recalled that, despite the fact that the moment in which the authorship of one and The other begins, the last part also has “a flavor of Puccini’s ideas.”
The stage direction falls to Emilio López -on the direction of Sonja Frisell-, who has tried to “make a deep reading” and not remain in “superficial layers”, showing “the three types of love: pure love, paternal-filial and the most risky”, which is the one that develops towards Turandot.
“Throughout the work we talk about the enigmas, which are still emotional barriers for her and traumas to be resolved for an ancestor who was violated by a man,” said López, who is committed to not remaining in “the ice princess.” ” and remember that it is a “very emotional and very fantasy” work.
The Canary Islander Jorge de León plays Calaf in a “fetish role” for the tenors, “not only because of the difficulty of the score and the immense treble register, but for having what is perhaps the most famous aria, such as the “Nessun Dorma.”
The Mexican Héctor Sandoval assumes the same role in the second cast of the artistic team of the work and emphasizes the “return to the essence” with this staging of the traditional opera, which in his opinion is “disappearing.”
‘Turandot’ will premiere on November 7 and will have performances on the 10th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 16th, to which more than 12,500 spectators are expected to attend. EFE
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