The Teatro Comunale di Bologna has announced that a member of the women’s chorus has tested positive for COVID-19. As a result, the company began performing its current run of “Madama Butterfly” without a women’s chorus. The superintendent Fulvio Macciardi noted that the company is still performing because he believes the theater is still a safe place and is being {…}
The Teatro Comunale di Bologna has revealed a new autumn season at the Paladozza, the basketball stadium in Bologna, Italy. For this article, we will focus on the operatic performances. Opera The autumn season opens with a semi-staged production of Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore” with Maria Rita Combattelli, Beatriz de Sousa Chaveiro, Klodjan Kacani, César Arrieta, Alberto Bonifazio, Jacobo Ochoa Piedrahita, {…}
The Teatro Comunale of Bologna has announced it could perform its upcoming season in a basketball arena. According to the Corriere di Bologna, the company would perform at the famed PalaDozza in response to the coronavirus crisis and in order to accommodate an audience of about one thousand. It would result in no basketball next season. Bologna’s head of culture {…}
The Teatro Comunale di Bologna has announced a summer season featuring several concert performances. For this article, we will only highlight concerts with opera excerpts or vocal performances. Michele Mariotti opens the summer with a concert featuring music from Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice” as well as music by Beethoven and Mozart. Performance Date: June 26, 2020 Juraj Valčuha conducts Wagner’s {…}
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has extended the lockdown until May 3, resulting in the closure of all Italian theaters. Italy was originally expected to open on April 13 but due the coronavirus and the the fatality totaling 18,849, more than any other country, Conte decided to extend. He stated, extending for another three weeks is “a difficult but necessary {…}
The Teatro Comunale di Bologna has announced that it will reschedule performances of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.” The company announced that the canceled performances scheduled from Feb. 24 through March 1 due to the coronavirus outbreak will be rescheduled for October 2020. In a press release the Comunale stated that the performances will be rescheduled as follows: Feb. 25 performance will {…}
(Photo: Rocco Casaluci) Of all the operas ever written possibly none explores the unconscious drive of love with such a stark and uncompromising vision as Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.” It is not a love tainted by the individual psychologies of its participants, their behavior is not an outcome of a deeper pathology, or molded by the past events which have {…}
The Teatro Comunale di Bologna has announced its 2020 season. Here is a look at what to expect. The season opens with Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” conducted by Juraj Valčuha and in a new production by Ralf Pleger. Stefan Vinke and Ann Petersen take on the title role s with Albert Dohmen, Martin Gantner, and Ekaterina Gubanova. Performance Dates: Jan. 24-31, 2020 Karah Son, Cristina {…}
The Teatro Comunale di Bologna has announced its 2019 season with 10 productions all year. The Italian company is giving its native repertory most of the stage-time, with a total of seven productions this season; there are two German works and one in English, that will also appear. So let’s dive in and break it down. “Il Trovatore” opens the {…}
Verdi made two distinct versions of “Don Carlos” plus a number of smaller-scale revisions. The original 1866 version written in French, was altered before its premiere, mainly for logistical reasons, as it was considered to be too long. The Italian version, written in 1884, with its Italian title “Don Carlo” contained extensive changes, most notably its reduction from five to {…}
Where one would expect the operatic double bill of “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “Pagliacci,” Teatro Comunale di Bologna instead opened last night’s double bill with Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine” and Mascagni’s ever-famous verismo opera, “Cavalleria Rusticana,” appropriately placed with the approaching Easter season. La Voix Humaine “Voix Humaine,” set to music from Cocteau’s play of the same name, is described as {…}