PRESS RELEASE
Venice, XX October 2013
2013-2014 Season
The 2013-2014 Opera Season of Fondazione Teatro La Fenice includes seventeen different
titles from November to November: L’africaine by Giacomo Meyerbeer, Onegin by Boris Eifman,
La scala di seta by Gioachino Rossini, La clemenza di Tito by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, La
Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Gioachino Rossini, Il campiello by Ermanno
Wolf-Ferrari, Elegy for Young Lovers by Hans Werner Henze, La bohème, Madama Butterfly and
Tosca by Giacomo Puccini, The Rake’s Progress by Igor Stravinskij, Otello and Il trovatore by
Giuseppe Verdi, L’inganno felice by Gioachino Rossini, Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart and a contemporary title that has not yet been chosen. The season includes five new
productions, three guest productions, eight repertoire operas and a guest ballet, coming to a total of
122 performances - all either in the evening or afternoon, with the exception of performances for
schools and other initiatives - which is a considerable increase compared to the past seasons.
A new production of Tosca is the consolidation and expansion of the repertoire; homage to
Giacomo Meyerbeer marking the 150th anniversary of his death with the challenging inaugural
production of L’Africaine; the traditional Venetian fil rouge of operas that were either inspired by
Venice or had their world première here such as Otello, Il campiello, Rossini’s farces, La Traviata,
and The Rake’s Progress; expansion and development of contemporary repertoire with Hans
Werner Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers and a second title together with the Music Biennale: these
are the main features of the programme, which will continue its production challenge of putting
both the Fenice and Malibran stages to intensive use, focussing on the careful combination of up
and coming artists (starting with the young principal conductor of La Fenice, Diego Matheuz) and
artists of international fame and experience.
The 2013-2014 Symphony Season of Teatro La Fenice includes thirteen concerts (plus ten
repeat performances), five of which will be conducted by the principal conductor of Fondazione
Teatro La Fenice Diego Matheuz or Choir Master Claudio Marino Moretti, and the other eight by
John Eliot Gardiner, Jeffrey Tate, Yuri Bashmet, Alessandro De March, Marco Angius, John
Axelrod, Stefano Montanari and Gaetano d’Espinosa. Almost the entire season will be dedicated to
the twentieth century, albeit from a particular perspective: the exclusion of the second School of
Vienna and the marked Vienna-Germanic world polarity, which was to enable contemporary
national schools – Russian, French, American, English and Italian – to liberate themselves
completely, with compositions by Stravinsky, Ravel, Elgar, Sibelius, Carter, Feldman, Cage,
Malipiero, Respighi, Rota, Petrassi, Berio, Pärt, Takemitsu, and recent pieces by Mosca and
Liberovici. The initiative "New Music at La Fenice" will also continue this year and will be
dedicated to Giovanni Morelli, with three world première commissions to young Italian composers.
The traditional dates are all confirmed with the Christmas Concert in the Basilica of Saint
Mark (conducted by Stefano Montanari), the New Year’s Concert broadcast live on RaiUno
(conducted in 2014 by Diego Matheuz), the Carnival programme and Premio Venezia and the
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2013-2014 season will also continue two important initiatives that began in the last few years: the
summer Festival, “The Spirit of Music in Venice”, with a new production of Stravinsky’s The
Rake’s Progress and a revival of Otello in the Doge’s Palace; and the Fenice Atelier at Teatro
Malibran, which will continue its studies of Rossini's younger farces, together with the students of
the Academy of Fine Arts, the Conservatory and Ca’ Foscari, all of whom will play a role in the
production of the performances together with La Fenice.
2013-2014 Opera Season
Opening on 23 November and ending on 8 November 2014, the 2013-2014 Opera Season will be
offering seventeen operas, five of which are new productions, three guest productions, a ballet
(Onegin with the Saint Petersburg Eifman Ballet) and eight revivals, coming to a grand total of 122
performances - every third day - with peaks of 15 performances in March, 19 in May and 17 in
September.
In addition to the opening with the new production of Giacomo Meyerbeer's Africaine,
conducted by Emmanuel Villaume with direction by Leo Muscato, the season also foresees a further
four new productions: La scala di seta by Gioachino Rossini, his fourth farce, produced by the
Fenice Atelier at Teatro Malibran, conducted by Alessandro De Marchi with direction by Bepi
Morassi; Tosca by Giacomo Puccini conducted by Daniele Callegari with direction by Serena
Sinigaglia; The Rake’s Progress by Igor Stravinsky conducted by Diego Matheuz with direction by
Damiano Michieletto, and a contemporary title that has not yet been chosen, together with the
Venice Biennale as part of the 58th International Festival of Contemporary Music.
Also thanks to interpretations by directors who are able to highlight its topicality and
expressive strength, the ability of opera as a genre to communicate with a modern audience is the
main theme of all three guest productions that Fondazione Teatro La Fenice has chosen to present
to its audience during the 2013-2014 season; in January Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s La Clemenza
di Tito with direction by Ursel Herrmann and set and costumes by Karl-Ernst Herrmann, an opera
that was produced by Teatro Real in Madrid in February 2012 after the Salzburg revival of the
historic 1982 Brussels production, a mile stone in the opera world for contemporary direction; in
February and March Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's Il Campiello with direction by Paolo Trevisi, with a
production from 2008 by the Rovigo Teatro Sociale; and in March April, Hans Werner Henze's
Elegy for Young Lovers with direction by Pier Luigi Pizza, paying homage to the German composer
who recently passed away, with a production that was awarded the Premio Abbiati (special award
2005), produced in 2005 by the Ancona Teatro delle Muse.
The eight revivals of repertoire works in the 2013-2014 season will be: La Traviata by
Giuseppe Verdi with direction by Robert Carsen, conducted by Diego Matheuz (in February) and by
Daniele Rustioni (in another performance cycle in September); Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Gioachino
Rossini with direction by Bepi Morassi, conducted by Diego Matheuz; La Bohème by Giacomo
Puccini conducted by Jader Bignamini with direction by Francesco Micheli and Madama Butterfly
conducted by Omer Meir Wellber with direction by Àlex Rigola and set and costumes by Mariko
Mori in a Puccini cycle in April and May; Otello by Giuseppe Verdi with direction by Francesco
Micheli revived in July in the Doge’s Palace Courtyard; Il Trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi with
direction by Lorenzo Mariani conducted by Daniele Rustioni; L’inganno felice by Gioachino
Rossini with direction by Bepi Morassi conducted by Stefano Montanari; and finally Don Giovanni
by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with direction by Damiano Michieletto.
As in the last season, the high number of performances during the 2013-2014 season will be
made possible by the extensive use of the two stages in La Fenice and Malibran: the end of January
will see the contemporary performances of La Clemenza di Tito at La Fenice and La scala di seta at
the Malibran; in February and March Il barbiere di Siviglia and La traviata will take it on turns on
the Fenice stage while Il campiello will be staged at the Malibran; in April and May La Fenice will
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host La bohème, Madama Butterfly and Tosca in rotation (six days out of seven) with a “Puccini
trilogy” to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the composer's death; in September, once again at La
Fenice, La traviata, Il trovatore and L’inganno felice will take it in turns on the stage.
A key figure in nineteenth-century European opera, and born in Berlin in 1791, Giacomo
Meyerbeer spent ten years in Italy and in the following forty years went on to become one of the
most important artifices of Parisian grand opera; several years ago it was to this composer that La
Fenice dedicated the opening of the 2007 Opera Season with a modern-day première of the Crociato
in Egitto, composed for the Venetian opera house in 1824. 2014 marks the 150th anniversary of the
composer’s death (Tasdorf 1791 – Paris 1864) and on this occasion La Fenice will open the season
with his last French masterpiece, L’Africaine, grand opéra in five acts that was started in 1837 and
not finished until 1864; it went on stage after his death on 28 April 1865 at the Paris Opéra. Last
performed at La Fenice in 1892 (but staged no less than four times with a total of 59 performances
between 1868 and 1892), L’Africaine will be conducted by a specialist of French repertoire,
Emmanuel Villaume (previously at La Fenice with Crociato in Egitto and Thaïs by Massenet), with
a double cast that sees in the main roles the tenors Gregory Kunde (Premio Abbiati 2012 for Verdi’s
Otello at La Fenice) and Antonello Palombi, Vasco de Gama; the sopranos Jessica Pratt and Zuzana
Marková, Inès; the mezzosopranos Veronica Simeoni (who was met with great success as Carmen
and Azucena at La Fenice) and Patrizia Biccirè, Sélika; and the baritones Angelo Veccia and Luca
Grassi, Nélusko. The new production of this challenging project is entrusted to the hands of the
forty-year old director from Puglia, Leo Muscato, with sets by Massimo Checchetto and costumes
by Carlos Tieppo. The preview on Saturday 23 November 2013 (broadcast live by Rai Radio3 and a
recorded broadcast by the Euroradio circuit) will be followed by another five performances on 26,
27, 29, 30 November and 1 December.
In December the Saint Petersburg Eifman Ballet will be in Venice with one of the most
important works by its founder and artistic director, the Russian choreographer, Boris Eifman:
Onegin, a two-act ballet by Pushkin to music by Pëtr Il’ič Čajkovskij and Aleksandr Sitkovetskij,
which had its première in 2009 in Saint Petersburg and will have its Italian première in Venice. The
première on Wednesday 18 December 2013 will be followed by four repeat performances on 19, 20,
21 and 22 December.
A new production of Gioachino Rossini’s Scala di seta will go on stage at Teatro Malibran
on 17 January 2014; this is the fourth of Rossini's young farces, produced by the Fenice Atelier at
Teatro Malibran. Direction by Bepi Morassi, design and creation of set and costumes by the
students of the School for set design at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts. Conductor Alessandro De
Marchi; main roles: David Ferri Durà, Dormont; Irina Dubrovskaya, Giulia; Paola Gardina, Lucilla;
Giorgio Misseri, Dorvil. The première on Friday 17 January 2013 will be followed by four repeat
performances on 19, 21, 23 and 25 January.
In January Teatro La Fenice will also stage a great classic of twentieth-century opera: La
Clemenza di Tito by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with direction by Ursel Herrmann and set,
costumes and lights by Karl-Ernst Herrmann. First performed in June 1982 at the Théâtre Royal de
la Monnaie in Brussels, it was revived at the Salzburg Festival from 1992 to 1997, at the Convent
Garden, London in 2000, at the Paris Opéra in 2005, and from 2006 to 2012 at the Prague National
Theatre; the two German artists offered a new interpretation of Mozart’s last opera, resulting in a
new production of the Teatro Real in Madrid in February 2012, and it is this production that will
now be staged in Venice as guest production. Ottavio Dantone will conduct the Orchestra and
Choir of Teatro La Fenice while the main roles of the cast include Carlo Allemano, Tito; Carmela
Remigio, Vitellia; Monica Bacelli, Sesto; Raffaella Milanesi, Annio. The première on Friday 24
January will be followed by four repeat performances on 26, 28, 30 January and 1 February.
During the Carnival season in February and March La Fenice will be offering three
productions: a revival of Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi at La Fenice with direction by Robert Carsen
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and sets and costumes by Patrick Kinmonth, and Barbiere di Siviglia by Gioachino Rossini with
direction by Bepi Morassi and sets and costumes by Lauro Crisman; both will be conducted by
Diego Matheuz; Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari’s Campiello will go on stage at Teatro Malibran with the
Regionale Veneto Filarmonia Orchestra, conducted by Stefano Romani, directed by Paolo Trevisi
with sets by Giuseppe Ranchetti; this is the 2008 production by the Rovigo Teatro Sociale,
performed in Venice as part of the initiative "Veneto theatres at La Fenice". Main roles in Traviata
are Venera Gimadieva, Violetta; in Barbiere di Siviglia Giorgio Misseri, Almaviva, Marina
Comparato, Rosina, and Julian Kim, Figaro. Ten performances of La traviata on 15, 16, 19, 21, 23,
25, 27 February and on 4, 6 and 8 March; seven performances of Il barbiere di Siviglia on 20, 22,
26 February and 2, 5, 7 and 9 March, five performances of Il campiello on 28 February and on 1, 5,
7 and 11 March.
In March and April Teatro Malibran will be the venue for Hans Werner Henze’s Elegy for
Young Lovers, conducted by Jonathan Webb, to pay homage to the German composer who died on
27 October last year. The opera, which debuted at the Schwetzingen Festival in 1961, will be staged
with the revised version of 1988, which had its première at La Fenice in October that year. The
production is the 2005 one by Pier Luigi Pizzi (direction, set, costumes) for Fondazione Teatro delle
Muse in Ancona, which won the special award at the XXV Premio Franco Abbiati ceremony. The
première on Thursday 27 March 2014 will be followed by four performances on 29 March and 2, 4,
and 6 April.
Similar to the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy that was staged in May 2013, the end of April and the
entire month of May 2014 will be dedicated to a “Puccini trilogy", marking the 90th anniversary of
the composer's death; the three productions will be staged during the same period at La Fenice, with
a peak of 15 performances in 17 days in the period from 16 May to 1 June. It will start on 19 April
2014 with a revival of La Fenice's Bohème from 2011, conductor Jader Bignamini, direction
Francesco Micheli, set Edoardo Sanchi, costumes Silvia Aymonino, with nine repeat performances
on 22, 24, 27, 29 April and on 3, 10, 25, 27 and 30 May. On 26 April the second opera will be
staged with the revival of Madama Butterfly, the 2012 production conducted by Omer Meir Wellber
with direction by Alex Rigola and set and costumes by Mariko Mori, with eight repeat
performances on 30 April, 2, 4, 9, 21, 24, 29 May and 1 June. The third opera will then have its
debut on 16 May with a new production of Tosca, conductor Callegari, direction by the forty-oneyear old Milanese director Serena Sinigaglia, set Maria Spazzi and costumes Federica Ponissi; there
will be seven repeat performances on 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 28 and 31 May. Main cast for La Bohème
Paulo Paolillo, Rodolfo; Julian Kim, Marcello; Carmen Giannattasio and Kristin Lewis, Mimì;
Francesca Dotto, Musetta. For Tosca Amanda Echalaz and Susanna Branchini, Tosca; Stefano
Secco and Lorenzo Decaro, Cavaradossi; Roberto Frontali and Angelo Veccia, Scarpia.
After having conducted the revivals of Rigoletto, La Traviata, La Bohème, Carmen and Il
Barbiere di Siviglia since 2011, on 27 June 2014 the thirty-year old principal conductor of La
Fenice, Diego Matheuz will conduct his first new production, working together with the thirty-nine
year old director Damiano Michieletto on the staging of Igor Stravinsky's The Rake’s Progress, one
of the greatest masterpieces of opera in the world, composed for Teatro La Fenice and first
performed on 11 September 1951 as part of the 14th International Festival of Contemporary Music
of the Venice Biennale. Proposed as a co-production with the Leipzig Opera as part of the festival
“The Spirit of Music in Venice”, for the new production of The Rake’s Progress the set is by Paolo
Fantin, costumes by Carla Teti, with the debut of the bass-baritone Alex Esposito as Nick Shadow;
Carmela Remigio will be Anne and Juan Francisco Gatell will be Tom Rakewell. The première on
Friday 27 June 2014 will be followed by four repeat performances on 29 and 1, 3 and 5 July.
The second edition of the festival “The Spirit of Music in Venice” will also include the
revival of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello on 12, 15 and 18 July in the Courtyard of the Doge's Palace;
direction Francesco Michieli, sets Edoardo Sanchi, and costumes Silvia Aymonino.
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After the summer break the month of September will be dedicated to another three revivals
that will alternate on the stage at Teatro La Fenice. On 29 August, with eight repeat performances
on 30, 31 August and 2, 3, 7, 1, 19 and 25 September the traditional autumn date will be repeated
with Traviata, direction Robert Carsen, set and costumes Patrick Kinmonth, and once again
conducted by Daniele Rustioni. This will be followed on 12 September by the revival of Trovatore,
co-produced in 2011 with Teatro Regio of Parma, direction Lorenzao Mariani, sets and costumes
William Orlandi; conducted by Daniele Rustoni with Carmen Giannattasio, Leonora; Veronica
Simeoni, Azucena; and Gregory Kunde, Manrico. There will be six repeat performances on 14, 17,
20, 24, 26 and 28 September. Finally, on 18 September the third revival will go on stage: Gioachino
Rossini’s Inganno felice, a 2012 production by the Fenice Atelier at Teatro Malibran that will be
transported and adapted to the larger stage of Teatro La Fenice; there will be three repeat
performances on 21, 23, and 27 September. Conductor Stefano Montanari, direction Bepi Morassi,
sets, costumes and lights by the Set design school of the Academy of Fine Arts (projects by Fabio
Carpene for the set, Federica De Bona for costumes, Andrea Sanso for light); main cast: Giorgio
Misseri, Bertrando; Marina Bucciarelli, Isabella; Marco Filippo Romano, Ormondo.
The month of October will be devoted to the revival of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don
Giovanni with the successful production with direction by Damiano Michieletto, sets by Paolo
Fantin and costumes by Carla Teti that won two Abbiati Awards and five Opera Awards in 2010.
Main cast: Alessio Arduini, Don Giovanni; Jessica Pratt and Francesca Dotto, Donna Anna; Juan
Francisco Gatell and Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani, Don Ottavio. The première is on Friday 10 October
and there will be eight repeat performances on the 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 October.
After working for several years on symphonic music, in 2014 the historic collaboration with
the Music Biennale will once again concentrate on opera, with a new production of Salvatore
Sciarrino's La Porta della Legge that will be part of the 2013-2014 opera season programme at La
Fenice; it will not only be the final opera but will also be part of the 58th International Festival of
Contemporary Music of the Biennale. The première is on Friday 31 October 2014 and there will be
four repeat performances on 2, 4, 6 and 8 November.
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