Arena di Verona

Antonio Albanese makes his debut as director of Rigoletto

21 February 2023

After twelve years, the 100th Arena di Verona Opera Festival 2023 offers a second new production in the same season: in addition to the opening production, Aida, there will be an all-new Rigoletto that will be an homage to the great Italian neo-realist cinema of the 1950s

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Sets by Guillermo Nova, lighting by Paolo Mazzon and a star-studded cast for each of the four unrepeatable evenings directed by Marco Armiliato: a foursome of leading figures with baritones Roman Burdenko, Ludovic Tézier, Luca Salsi, and Amartuvshin Enkhbat, as well as luxury debuts by Nina Minasyan, Nadine Sierra, Yusif Eyvazov, Juan Diego Flórez, and Piotr Beczała

"My best opera!" This is how Giuseppe Verdi defined Rigoletto, after defying censorship and winning over audiences halfway across Europe, including Victor Hugo, author of the scandalous drama Le Roi s'amuse, translated into music by Verdi with verses by his trusted librettist, Piave. For a masterpiece of musical theatre of all time, which has never been out of the repertoire since it premiered in Venice in 1851, Fondazione Arena has decided to look to a man from contemporary theatre (and Italian cinema), calling upon Antonio Albanese, award-winning actor and director who has already staged opera productions at La Scala in Milan, the Lirico in Cagliari, the Petruzzelli in Bari and the Filarmonico in Verona, among others, to direct. Rigoletto will be his grand debut in the thousand-year-old Veronese amphitheatre. Albanese will be accompanied by a creative team of world-renowned experts for this brand new staging: Juan Guillermo Nova for the sets and Paolo Mazzon for lighting. Rigoletto is the seventh most performed title in the Festival's history, with 102 performances in ten different productions over sixteen summers until 2017, all of them in historical and traditional style. This production comes exactly twenty years after the last one, which reconstructed the sketches from 1928. It is also the first occasion since 2011 on which the Arena di Verona has staged a second new production at the same Festival.

On the huge stage at the Arena, the story of Rigoletto will be told in a new, authentic, and fascinating form, emphasising the dramatic force of the situations and the relationships between characters, but also keeping the characters in tune with the zeitgeist. In fact, the story will be set in the Polesine of the 1950s, part of that rural plain where Verdi was born and chose to live, which later became the setting for great Italian cinema, from Fellini to Pupi Avati. The entire production will be a tribute to Italy’s post-war neo-realist cinema, a season in which deep wounds coexist with the desire for rebirth. The power dynamic between the Duke - here a great landowner, who is admired, feared and envied by his people - and his subordinate Rigoletto, a jester chosen for his wit among the many sharecroppers, peasants and humble people the master disposes of (and abuses), does not change. Dark nights in the countryside become the silent backdrop for secret meetings, love affairs and dark murders, as per the libretto.

“It is a real honour for me to deal with the most dramatic court jester”, says director Antonio Albanese. “I see Rigoletto as an impetuous opera, capable of exalting passion and love, revenge and power. Animating and setting this masterpiece inside the Arena di Verona, and on top of that, for the 100th anniversary of this unique space in the world, makes me very happy. I will try to exalt this poignant story, working with genuine devotion and passion, and promising myself and others not to take possession of the work.”

The four performances from 1 July to 4 August bring together a star-studded cast, starting with the main character, played by some of today's most sought-after baritones: Roman Burdenko, Ludovic Tézier, Luca Salsi - none of whom has ever tackled this role in Verona - and Amartuvshin Enkhbat, who made his Arena debut in Rigoletto in 2017. The much-loved daughter, Gilda is interpreted by two specialists, Armenian soprano Nina Minasyan - already an acclaimed Violetta - and the American Nadine Sierra, who will make her Arena stage debut on 4 August after a concert appearance nine years ago. There is no shortage of surprises on the tenor front either: Azerbaijani Yusif Eyvazov, a long-standing friend of the Arena, who has also chosen to take on challenging new characters, will play the Duke for the first time in the performances on 1 and 7 July; in addition to him on one date each, two different and prestigious Dukes, Juan Diego Flórez and Piotr Beczała, will make their long-awaited debut in the Amphitheatre. The roles of Sparafucile and Maddalena, siblings in (mis)deeds, are no less impressive: Arena debut for bass Gianluca Buratto and confirmation for young mezzo-soprano Valeria Girardello. Experts and talented young players come together in the supporting roles: Agostina Smimmero (Giovanna), Gianfranco Montresor (Monterone), Nicolò Ceriani (Marullo), Riccardo Rados (Borsa), Matteo Ferrara and Francesca Maionchi (Count and Countess Ceprano), Giorgi Manoshvili (usher), Elisabetta Zizzo (page). Conducting the international cast, as well as the Orchestra of the Fondazione Arena di Verona and its male choir, prepared by Ulisse Trabacchin, will be Maestro Marco Armiliato, Music Director of the last Festival.

“We chose a narrative for Rigoletto that was both near and distant, clear but intriguing”, explains Cecilia Gasdia, Superintendent and Artistic Director of the Fondazione Arena di Verona, “a vaguely familiar recent past. Verdi used Hugo, Shakespeare, Schiller and Dumas to speak to the audience of his time. As he wrote, his everyday qualities infiltrated the most romantic subjects and the most archetypal characters to give them new life, 'inventing a truth' that is more powerful than any imitation. The successful expedient of 'La donna è mobile' is an example of this: a melody that immediately sticks in the mind. The story goes that Verdi asked for the utmost reserve so that it would not come out of rehearsals - not even hummed - and it is sung by a powerful man in a tavern, the noblest character in the playbill who mixes with the humble folk for his own ends. And the protagonist, the deepest, most complex character, is also the most socially marginalised: a very modern anti-hero.”

“This Rigoletto is part of a wide and diversified artistic programme”, concludes Stefano Trespidi, Deputy Artistic Director of the Fondazione Arena, “on the one hand we have six productions that are six great classics, a genuine anthology of visions and ways of understanding opera in the Arena over the last thirty years, with masterpieces by masters such as de Bosio, Zeffirelli, and de Ana; on the other hand, not as an antithesis but a completion of the same offer, we have the freshness of new productions of Aida and Rigoletto, intended to offer alternative looks and to appeal to the widest possible audience. The Arena, like opera, belongs to everyone and is for everyone.”

Rigoletto is just one of the titles in the rich and eagerly awaited programme of the Festival at the Arena, an event that attracts hundreds of thousands of spectators from all over the world every year, a resource for the city and the territory, and this year reaching its 100th edition. The programme represents an unprecedented artistic and productive effort: the 100th Festival 2023 can count 49 unmissable evenings from 16 June to 9 September, in which no fewer than 8 opera titles and 5 gala evenings with Roberto Bolle, Juan Diego Flórez, Plácido Domingo, Jonas Kaufmann, the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro alla Scala conducted by Riccardo Chailly will be performed in the same season.

The 100th Arena di Verona Opera Festival 2023 is jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and the Veneto Region.

The Fondazione Arena di Verona would like to express its sincere thanks to all Festival partners and sponsors. First of all, we would like to thank major partners UniCredit, Calzedonia, Pastificio Giovanni Rana, Volkswagen Group Italia, DB BAHN, RTL 102.5, then Official sponsors Veronafiere, Air Dolomiti, A4 Holding, Casa Sartori, SABA Italia, SDG Group and Vicenzi , and our Cultural Partner Palazzo Maffei. Obviously, thanks are also due to the companies, private individuals, and professional associations that make up the ranks of the Membership of 67 Columns for the Arena di Verona, now in its third year.

Information

Press Office Fondazione Arena di Verona

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Tel. (+39) 045 805.1861-1905-1891-1939

ufficio.stampa@arenadiverona.it

Press and Media Advisor Alessia Capelletti with Marina Nocilla

Tel. +39 347 5801910 / Tel. +39 338 7172263

consulenti@capelletti-moja.com

Box office

Via Dietro Anfiteatro 6/B, 37121 Verona - Call center (+39) 045 800.51.51

biglietteria@arenadiverona.it

Presale points TicketOne

www.arena.it

1, 7, 20 July at 9:00 p.m.

4 August at 8:45 p.m.

Rigoletto

by Giuseppe Verdi

Melodrama in three acts.

Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave

NEW PRODUCTION

Director	Antonio Albanese *
Set design	Juan Guillermo Nova *
Lightning	Paolo Mazzon
Conductor	Marco Armiliato
The Duke of Mantua	Yusif Eyvazov 1, 7/7 Juan Diego Flórez 20/7 * Piotr Beczała 4/8 *
Rigoletto	Roman Burdenko 1/7 Ludovic Tézier 7/7 Luca Salsi 20/7 Amartuvshin Enkhbat 4/8
Gilda	Gilda Nina Minasyan 1, 7, 20/7 Nadine Sierra 4/8
Sparafucile	Gianluca Buratto *
Maddalena	Valeria Girardello
Giovanna	Agostina Smimmero
Count Monterone	Gianfranco Montresor
Marullo	Nicolò Ceriani
Matteo Borsa	Riccardo Rados
Count Ceprano	Matteo Ferrara *
Countess Ceprano	Francesca Maionchi
Courtier	Giorgi Manoshvili
Duchess' Page	Elisabetta Zizzo
	* Debut at the Arena di Verona