SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 15 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Auditorio de Tenerife has hosted on Tuesday the presentation of the opera ‘Un ballo in maschera’ (A Masked Ball) by Giuseppe Verdi, a co-production between Ópera de Tenerife and the Teatro Regio di Parma that can be seen in the Symphony Hall of the Auditorium on November 22, 24 and 26 at 7:30 p.m.
The details of this show were announced by the insular director of Culture of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Alejandro Krawietz; the stage director, Marina Bianchi, and the musical director, Alessandro D’Agostini, accompanied by the cast.
Alejandro Krawietz assured that presenting this title “is cause for enormous illusion”. “In recent seasons we have opened spaces for the contemporary by maintaining repertoire titles such as Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, which is being programmed for the first time in the Auditorium,” explained the island director, who highlighted the scenery, “restored for the occasion , which dates from 1913 and is the work of the renowned Italian set designer Giuseppe Carmignani”.
This staging bears the signature of the director Marina Bianchi, for whom it is “an honor to be in this opera, which was forged before the pandemic from the scenery found at the Teatro Regio di Parma.” “I have been working and in contact with this world for a long time, I have worked with great opera artists and for that reason and for my love for European tradition and culture, they entrusted me with this direction”, the teacher deepened, who advanced that it is about “a story of love and death that, from tradition, will make us dream”.
Alessandro D’Agostini, who will be in charge of the musical direction and the baton of the Tenerife Symphony, joined Bianchi’s words and reinforced that “tradition is for dreaming”. The maestro commented that the score version he chose for Tenerife was criticized for its characteristics, especially for the nuances it offers. “I appreciate the involvement and work of the soloists, orchestra, choir and all the Auditorium staff to make possible this range of musical colors that the public will notice in the three performances”, he added.
The team is completed by Michele Cosentino, Bianchi’s assistant and responsible for the choreography; Leila Fteita, who designs the set design; Lorena Marin, who is the author of the costumes, and Andrea Borelli, in charge of the lighting design for this historical proposal.
The cast is made up of tenor José Bros, who plays Governor Riccardo; the baritone Sergey Kaydalov, who becomes Renato, the governor’s secretary and confidant, and the soprano Monica Zanettin, who gives body and voice to Amelia, Renato’s wife and Riccardo’s lover. In addition, the witch-fortune teller Ulrica will come to life through the contralto Enkelejda Shkoza and the soprano Sofía Esparza will play Oscar, the governor’s page.
Bass singers Gianni Giuga, Eugenio Di Lieto and Nicolò Donini will play Silvano, Samuel and Tom, respectively. Finally, the tenor Blagoj Nacoski will be both a judge and a servant. To these voices are added those of the Tenerife-Intermezzo Main Choir and the participation of dancers from the International Dance Center of Tenerife.
Premiered at the Apollo Theater in Rome in 1859, ‘Un ballo in maschera’ is perhaps one of the roundest and most beautiful operas of the Italian genius. The action, which consists of three acts, is based on the assassination in 1792 of King Gustav III of Sweden, an enlightened despot at odds with the nobility because of his reforms, at the hands of a gentleman of the court. The story has many of the public’s favorite ingredients: forbidden love, terrifying settings, revenge, death and dark and marginal characters like Ulrica.
Subjected to censorship on several occasions during the composition process, Verdi and Somma’s artistic proposal went through several versions until it could finally be released after avoiding the idea of an assassination in a European kingdom by moving the setting of the story to Boston Colonial and rename the characters.
Earlier, with the same historical inspiration, in 1833 the writer Eugène Scribe would have prepared the libretto for a historical opera for the musician Daniel François Esprit Auber, entitled Gustave III ou Le Bal masqué, which kept some names of real historical figures in the middle of a plot in which the rest of the contents are imaginary. Ten years later, with the same plot, Salvatore Cammarano wrote the text of Mercadante’s opera Il reggente. Verdi’s opera, distinguished as “the Bostonian story”, is the best known and most performed.
Tickets can be purchased on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the box office from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and by telephone by calling 902 317 327 at the same time. Tickets for those under 30 cost only 5 euros and, in addition, discounts are available for students, the unemployed and large families.
