-The Italian maestro will conduct the Bellini opera, which has not been performed in the Milanese opera house since 1958.
June 2018
It will be one of the big events of the year. The opera Il pirata, by Vincenzo Bellini, will finally be performed again in June and July at the opera house where it had its world premiere in 1827, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, this time under the watchful eye of the renowned Italian conductor Riccardo Frizza. The opera, which has not been staged at La Scala since Antonino Votto conducted Maria Callas in the lead role in 1958, will be revived as conceived by the maestro Frizza, a great expert in Bellini operas and all the composers of the style. Frizza is also the musical director of the Bergamo Donizetti Festival (Italy). He made his debut at La Scala in 2013 with Verdi´s first opera, Oberto– and he considers Il pirata “a true and little known jewel of Bellini bel-canto. The opera had its world premiere in La Scala and it was a debut for Bellini, who included some novelties which he would later go on to develop in Norma (1831). Il pirata has some magnificent moments, such as the impressive scene of Imogene´s madness with which Bellini concludes the opera after he eliminated the original final scene in which she commits suicide. The technical difficulties of the writing are a real challenge for any singer who dares to take on this tough score”.
Frizza will be returning to the podium at La Scala after having conducted Norma (Bellini) there this same season as well as L’elisir d’amore (Donizetti) at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Luisa Miller (Verdi) at the Zurich Opernhaus, Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini) at the Paris Opéra National, La Traviata (Verdi) at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Falstaff (Verdi) at the Teatro Regio in Parma and Aida (Verdi) at the Macerata Festival.
Il pirata will open in Milan on the 29th June and there will be other performances on the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 14th, 17th and 19th July. It will be a new production directed by the Spanish director Emilio Sagi with soprano Sonya Yoncheva in the role of Imogene (Roberta Mantegna in the 14th and 19th July performances), a Gualtiero sung by Piero Pretti and Ernesto sung by Nicola Alaimo.