Daniele Rustioni To Lead 3 Verdi Operas & Britten’s War Requiem As Part of Opera de Lyon’s 2017-18 Season

By David Salazar

Conductor Daniele Rustioni is poised to change things up at the Opera de Lyon in coming seasons. The Italian maestro was presented as the newly minted Music Director of the company at a private reception in New York on Thursday at the Bar Boulud on Broadway.

Along with him was Lyon Opera’s own General Director Serge Dorny to reveal the details of the 2017-18 season while providing hints of more to come in future seasons. The biggest news revolved around Rustioni, who is signed on for the next five seasons. In addition to bringing in a new vision to the standard Italian repertoire, Rustioni, according to Dorny, is expected to try out works outside of his comfort zone.

Rustioni’s Upcoming Productions

It starts with the 2017-18 season’s opening night, a new staging of Britten’s “War Requiem” which will see the Maestro pair with Jochen Schmeckenbecher, Paul Groves, and Ekaterina Scherbachenko. Yoshi Oida will stage the oratorio with the first performance set for Oct. 9, 2017. There will be a total of seven shows, the last on the 21st of October.

In addition to the Britten, Rustioni will be featured in repertoire he knows best – Verdi. He first performed with the company in 2014, leading a production of Verdi’s “Simon Boccanegra.” He also noted that his first-ever experience watching a production by the Lyon Opera was “Macbeth.”

Next season, he will take on three operas by the composer he considers “the King of Opera.”

First up on the docket will be a concert performance of “Atilla” with Dmitry Ulyanov, Alexey Markov, Tatiana Serjan and Riccardo Massi. There will be two performances of the work, one in November and another in March.

Then comes a revival of the Ivo van Hove production of “Macbeth” starting on March 16, 2018. The next day, the conductor leads a new production of “Don Carlos.” The full five-act version in French will also include sections from the 1867 dress rehearsal that are often excised. There will also be sections of the ballet in the production by Christophe Honoré. Michele Pertusi sings his first Philippe II while Stéphane Degout and Sally Matthews make their role debuts as Posa and Elisabeth de Valois respectively. Eva-Maud Hubeaux plays Princess Eboli and Sergey Romanovsky takes on the title role.

Rustioni and Dorny also hinted at more to come, mentioning that the maestro would lead productions of Tchaikovsky’s “The Enchantress,” Rossini’s “Guillaume Tell” and Boito’s “Mefistofele” in future seasons.

New Productions Galore During Rest of Season

Additionally, the company takes on “Mozart and Salieri” by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in a revival of 2010 production by Jean Lacornerie and with Pierre Bleuse at the podium. The first performance of the six-show run takes place on Halloween 2017.

Stefan Herheim directs a new production of Rossini’s “La Cenerentola,” which is done in collaboration with Oslo Opera starting on Dec. 15, 2017. Stefano Montanari conducts.

Zemlinsky’s “The Chalk Circle” gets a new production by Richard Brunel starting on Jan. 20, 2018 and “Don Giovanni” will be featured in a fresh take by director David Marton. Philippe Sly takes on the title role with Kyle Ketelsen as Leporello and Eleonora Buratto as Donna Anna. The first performance is set for June 25, 2018, with eight more to follow.

As part of Dorny’s mission to bring new works to the house, the company will world premiere Alexander Raskatov’s “Germania in May for seven shows while also bringing Janácek’s “The Diary of One Who Disappeared” in early February 2018 for five shows. There will also be new productions of Respighi’s “La Bella Dormente Nel Bosco” as well as Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale” by La Fura dels Baus.

 

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