After the great success of last December's "Aida", world-renowned conductor Daniel Oren and Plamen Kartaloff are working together again at the Teatro Verdi in Salerno for a new production of "La bohème", dedicated to the year of Giacomo Puccini. The performances on 26 and 28 April open the opera season in the city.
At the meeting with journalists on 23 April, the production team was presented – conductor Daniel Oren, director Plamen Kartaloff, set and costume design by Alfredo Troisi.
An international soloist ensemble will perform the main roles on both nights.
After the great success of last December's Aida, world-renowned conductor Daniel Oren and Plamen Kartalov are working together again at the Teatro Verdi in Salerno for a new production of La Boheme, dedicated to the year of Giacomo Puccini. The performances on 26 and 28 April open the opera season in the city.
Mariangela Sicilia, who will perform as Mimì, is coming to Salerno after a huge success at La Scala as Magda in Puccini's opera "La rondine". Giovanni Sala /Rodolfo/ is also starring in La Scala's "La rondine" and has performances in Valencia, Paris, Buseto and Philadelphia in the coming months. Sabina Puértolas, who will perform the role of Musetta, hails from Bilbao and Madrid, while baritone Mario Cassi /as Marcello/ has won numerous prizes in international competitions and sings in Europe's greatest theatres. He has upcoming performances in Genoa, Macerata and Bologna.
Set and costume design by Alfredo Troisi.
Here is what Plamen Kartaloff told the Italian press in a conversation with Claudia Cianciulli.
Maestro, you will open the 2024 opera season and you will take on one of the composer's operas from Lucca – one of the most popular in the entire operatic repertoire, one of the most famous in the world and one of the most performed. What's your connection to Giacomo Puccini's "La bohème"?
I love Puccini's masterpiece, with which the composer, looking back to late Verdi, sketches a realistic, vivid and yet highly poetic setting in which young bohemians struggle with the inexorable transience of time. On stage, we witness the passage of four lives filled with ideals, hopes and dreams that are shattered by a violent confrontation with a much harsher reality involving the worst truth of all – death. A death that, however, leads to the exaltation of life and that shows us the indispensable need to enjoy every moment and fill it with beauty, joy and love.
What will be your direction of "La bohème"?
My directorial interpretation follows a single possible narrative: visualizing the music and the character of the vocal images in a natural stage environment, making the stage image real and vivid and the characters passionate in a dynamic action full of emotions. For me as a director, the composer's language, which also creates the image of the spectacle, is absolutely important. The important things are in the lines of the vocal and orchestral score. Each phrase is a thought and a support, a reference point for the stage action.
"La bohème" is a very modern work, even though it is set in 1830, it can be a story outside of time and space, don't you think?
Absolutely yes! In each of the scenes that unfold, one witnesses glimpses of life that touch the heartstrings and make them vibrate, precisely because one identifies with the story of the four young characters. In every single passage of the narrative, there is a description of human moments in which the audience can not only empathize but also identify with the characters.
In the intense narrative of feelings and emotions you experience with "La bohème", is there a character with whom you feel more emotional harmony?
They are all indispensable and necessary characters to the fabric of the narrative, and their lives are inextricably linked and indivisible in the mosaic of цd fates.
Is there a dramatic moment or passage you prefer in this piece?
There are many situations rich with dramatic tension in the plot, but there can be no more powerful and intense moment than in Act III, when Mimi and Rodolfo realize in their final encounter that life is over for both of them.
Photos by Massimo Pica
https://www.24chasa.bg/ozhivlenie/article/17731414