For its 51th opera season, which is to run parallel to the 2015 Expo in Milan (with its main focus on nutrition), the Sferisterio team have designed a feast of music and great voices. The festival programme features well-established artists as well as young talents, the choice of voices confirming the festival’s unique ability to establish long-lasting ties with many artists. The casting of world-famous singers is matched by the search for young, brilliant directors, innovation being at the core of the festival.

Rigoletto will be first on stage, on 17 July, to close the circle of Verdi’s popular trilogy started in 2013 with Il Trovatore and carried on in 2014 with La Traviata. Bulgarian baritone Vladimir Stoyanov, recently engaged as Germont in La Traviata in Venice and in Barcelona, will star as Rigoletto. Young, Sicilian soprano Jessica Nuccio, acclaimed in 2014 as Violetta Valéry, will be Gilda. Celso Albelo, a brilliant and sharp tenor, will perform as the Duke, a role which made him famous and led him to be called to perform at La Scala in Milan and all other major theatres. Young conductor Francesco Lanzillotta will be leading the orchestra and singers. His past experience features theatres such as La Fenice in Venice, San Carlo in Napoli, Verdi in Trieste and the Filarmonico in Verona, but he also led the RAI orchestra in Torino and the Haydn orchestra in Bolzano. Stage direction will be in the hands of Federico Grazzini, a creative director and light designer who was recently praised for his success with Il Barbiere di Siviglia for the Circuito Lirico Lombardo, but also for several productions at Wexford, the Comunale theatre in Bologna and the Martina Franca opera festival.

 

The realist diptych par excellence, made of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, will be back to Macerata in 2015. Both operas will have soprano Anna Pirozzi in the leading role. Pirozzi was first acclaimed at the Salzburg Festival in 2013, performing Abigaille in a production of Nabucco conducted by Riccardo Muti. The latter then brought Anna Pirozzi to Rome with him, to be Elvira in Ernani. In Cavalleria Rusticana, the role of Turiddu is given to Rafael Davila, at the Sferisterio for the first time, whereas Canio will be Yusif Eyvazov, who recently starred in Manon Lescaut with Anna Netrebko, in Rome, with Riccardo Muti as conductor.  The baton will be in the hands of Christopher Franklin, who was widely praised at the Sferisterio in 2013 for Sogni di Una Notte di Mezza Estate. Franklin’s brilliant career led him to conduct outstanding orchestras, such as the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Royal Philarmonic. He was also asked to perform at great theatres such as the Regio in Torino, the Comunale in Bologna, the San Carlo in Napoli, the Carlo Felice in Genova and, last but not least, the Opera Theatre in Rome. Alessandro Talevi, a very young director from South Africa, will be directing this production. After his studies at the Royal Academy in London, he was director of the independent opera at London’s Sadler’s Well. In Italy, he worked for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Martina Franca opera Festival and the Muse Theatre in Ancona. Italian critic Paolo Isotta has defined him “a genius”.

La Bohème will be back with the Sferisterio production which earned director Leo Muscato the Abbiati Prize, in 2012. Soprano Carmela Remigio, a long-standing collaborator of the Macerata festival, will take the leading role. Remigio is a brilliant and creative artist, capable of touching the audience’s hearts as Vitellia in Clemenza di Tito (La Fenice, Venice, 2014), but also as Tatiana in Onegin (San Carlo, Napoli, 2014). Mexican tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz will be with her in the opera; he came to be worldwide-known in 2005 through the Operalia competition, directed by Placido Domingo, whom he performed with this year at the Theater an der Wien (I due Foscari). Chacón-Cruz also gave a great performance this year in Munich as Alfredo, alongside Diana Damrau. David Crescenzi, who was in the past at the Sferisterio as Choir Master, will be conducting the orchestra, after many an experience in theatres across Europe.

 

Programme

 

Giuseppe Verdi

Rigoletto (17, 25 and 31 July, 9 August)

Conductor: Francesco Lanzillotta

Stage Director: Federico Grazzini

Rigoletto: Vladimir Stoyanov

Gilda: Jessica Nuccio

Il Duca di Mantova: Celso Albelo

 

Pietro Mascagni

Cavalleria Rusticana (18 and 24 July, 2 and 8 August)

Conductor: Christopher Franklin

Stage Director: Alessandro Talevi

Santuzza: Anna Pirozzi

Turiddu: Rafael Davila

 

Ruggero Leoncavallo

Pagliacci (18 and 24 July, 2 and 8 August)

Conductor: Christopher Franklin

Stage Director: Alessandro Talevi

Nedda: Anna Pirozzi

Canio: Yusif Eyvazov

 

Giacomo Puccini

La Bohème (26 July, 1 and 7 August)

Conductor: David Crescenzi

Stage Director: Leo Muscato

Mimì: Carmela Remigio

Rodolfo: Arturo Chacón-Cruz