The opera event of this summer in Taormina is certainly the new staging of the most represented work in the world, The traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, who will be staged next Sunday 17 August in the wonderful scenario of the Antico Theater, on a single date, with an international cast and remarkable deployment of forces, in the context of the Taormina Opera Festival made also this year in collaboration with the Municipality of Taormina.
It is a real opera event, which bears the signature of Enrico Castiglione, a director of international prestige, returned to being the protagonist of the programming at the Antico Theater since last year, thanks first of all to his staging of the Manon Lescaut by Puccini transmitted to Italy by Rai 5, marking
Enrico Castiglione is currently struggling with the tests of Traviata. And we take advantage of a break of the tests of the Traviata To exchange a few words with the master born in Rome but by Sicilian parents.
“Immediately after The traviata In Taormina he says Castiglione – I leave for New York where on September 4th I will debut at the New York City Opera with Carmenthe edition with which we will celebrate the 150 years in the United States from the debut of Georges Bizet’s masterpiece. It is a work that I love, which I have staged many times all over the world, from Brazil to China, with numerous editions also and above all in Europe, but every time I stage it it is as if it were the first time “.
During the eleven years in Taormina as artistic director of Taormina Arte and as director of the operations of the operations from 2007 to 2017, Castiglione never had the opportunity to stage this Verdian opera masterpiece. ” The traviata – says the director again – It seems an easy work, but it is absolutely not. It needs exceptional voices and of particular credibility and scenic strength. The work at the Antico Theater in Taormina requires days of tests, the lights must be prepared on the nights preceding the debut of the show, unless you want to offer an approximate representation staged from morning to evening. Since last year, thanks to the Municipality of Taormina, it has instead been possible to have the ancient theater available for several days and therefore it was possible to carry out the tests on the stage as in the times of my artistic direction of Taormina Arte, so this year I chose The traviatawhich despite having directed it many times around the world I had never staged in Taormina ”.
Castiglione in Taormina has always brought different titles. “The first ever Medea by Luigi Cherubini, with whom I made his debut as a director at the Teatro Antico in 2007, up to the Boheme of 2017, broadcast live in over 700 cinemas all over the world. The traviata It represents the peak of the musical theater of all time, whose story is the eternal contrast between the passion and love summarized in the figure of Violetta, a luxury courtesan or, if we want to be contemporary, an escort of high society, which remains a prisoner of his life model even when he seeks, almost without realizing it, love, the authentic and sincere one, but loses him because he remains a prisoner of his life as a prostitute of high And then he finds him only on the point of death, because life does not allow it to fully live love and to get rid of its limits by mocking it mockingly to death. It is a story that is easily defined tragic, but that actually already from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, The Dame Aux Camélias From which history is taken, it emerges throughout its cruel destiny, playing on the opposed dualism of ephemeral seduction and authentic love, playful life and inexorable death “.
The cast selected for the Taorminese event is of absolute quality. “What criteria did I follow in the choices? First of all for the vocality, but in my case precisely for a vocality that is indissolubly combined also with the ability and the flexibility of knowing how to be on the scene, always making every singer act in my royal as if it were also an actor. We must never forget that the opera offers the possibility of being a singer but also an actor, without losing that” acting singing “. The work is and remains the most complex and fascinating live show that we have, where singing is one with acting, where music meets theater and dance, where the scenography is an expression of painting and sculpture, in short, the only form of art that lives you the emotion of the synthesis of all possible arts. In that of Alfredo, Elia Fabbian in the role of Giorgio Germont, Lara Rotili in the part of Flora, Francesco Palmieri in Dr. Grenvil, assisted by a host of talented artists such as Luciano Buono, Elena Sciancalepore and the Sicilians Natale Calafiore, Fulvio Bumbalo, Sergio La Spina, Fabio La Monica, Domenico Oliva. He will direct our Taormina Opera Festival Orchestra, made up of excellent musicians among the best in Sicily, and Pietro Valguarnera, master of the highly experienced choir, will be head of the Italian lyric choir Vincenzo Bellini, coordinated by Natalina Privitera.