We’ve just reached the end of the 2023/2024 season, which I’ve had the privilege of concluding at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, with Maria Stuarda (at the Naples opera house, I’m carrying forward this ‘Tudor Queens’ project, which will reach completion in 2025 with Roberto Devereux). Before the start of next season, which will take me to the Verdi Festival and then on to theatres in Bergamo, Bologna, Bilbao, Seville and New York, I’m back conducting two summer festivals that are close to my heart: the Festival della Valle d’Itria and the Festival Internacional Santander.

At the former, on 3rd August, against the spectacular baroque background of Martina Franca, I’m conducting the Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro Petruzzelli, Bari, in Beethoven symphony no. 9 in D minor for the 200th anniversary of its first performance. It’s a great privilege to take on this monument of musical history which, two hundred years ago, revolutionised the concept of the symphony, not just for its use of voices and a choir, but for the message of freedom and universal brotherhood that the composer took from Schiller, first making it his own, then passing it on to all those listening on 7th May 1824 at the Theater Kärntnertor in Vienna. The audience enthusiastically waved their handkerchiefs at the end (so that the deaf Beethoven who was on stage with the conductor could appreciate their acclaim). Since then, the Choral Symphony has become one of the landmarks of music and western thinking.

It’s an emotional experience being back in Martina Franca: in summer 2001, when I made my debut as a conductor, the performance was devoted entirely to Verdi (the 𝑄𝑢𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑟𝑜 𝑝𝑒𝑧𝑧𝑖 𝑠𝑎𝑐𝑟𝑖 and 𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑎 𝑚𝑒, 𝐷𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒 composed as the final piece in the Mass created for the commemoration of the first anniversary of Rossini’s death). And I’m here again to take part in the fiftieth anniversary celebrations for this festival, established thanks to the will of its far-sighted founders, and today an authentic part of the world’s musical heritage.

On 5th August, I’m conducting the Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao in a splendid ‘Puccini Gala’ at the Festival Internacional Santander. With me, I will have the two stars: Sondra Radvanovsky and Jonathan Tetelman. With arias and duets from Tosca, Manon Lescaut and Turandot, we will pay tribute to Puccini’s genius on the centenary anniversary of his death. The anthology will be preceded by Verdi (Pace, pace, pace mio Dio) and followed by Giordano (arias and duets by Maddalena and Andrea from Andrea Chénier), to underline the references and allusions between one composer and another, and to showcase the excellence of the two soloists and the equally magnificent Bilbao orchestra.

In Naples, “another” of Donizetti’s home cities, I’m working on a project which is very special in terms of quality, continuity and significance. It began in 2022 with Le tre regine, which was both a concert and a narrative consisting of the finales from the operas in the Tudor trilogy. The following year, I returned here to conduct Anna Bolena in a Teatro di San Carlo, Dutch National Opera and Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía co-production with stage direction by Jetske Mijnssen. Now I’m back again from 20th to 29th June 2024 for Maria Stuarda entrusted to the same creative team and the same three co-producers. As musical director of Donizetti Opera, it is a privilege for me to have this opportunity to shape all these works both musically and theatrically: I’ll be completing the trilogy with Roberto Devereux, again at the Teatro di San Carlo, from 16th to 25th July 2025.

Maria Stuarda made its mark as the opera and in the year (1834) that rewarded Donizetti for his return to Naples after an absence of sixteen months: he was appointed professor of counterpoint and composition at the Royal College of Music, and received commissions for a royal gala performance and for the composition of a tragic opera for the Teatro di San Carlo. For this work, Donizetti chose a subject which was much loved by the Romantics, Maria Stuart by Schiller. It is well-known that Donizetti took an active role in writing the libretto because Felice Romani was unavailable, so he had to settle for the youthful Giuseppe Bardari. As a result, Maria Stuarda has one of the most interesting librettos of all Donizetti’s operas. In just a few months, the opera was ready, but not to be staged in Naples, after two sopranos hilariously came to blows during the first orchestra rehearsal, resulting in a royal ban on performances of Maria Stuarda at the Teatro di San Carlo. No harm came of this, because Maria Malibran fell in love with the tragedy and was determined to take it to La Scala, where it was performed for the first time in 1835. This was a version which had been adapted and revised for the sublime prima donna, very different from the one we’ve become accustomed to since 1958 thanks to its first modern day revival and “rediscovery”, which took place very aptly in Bergamo, and thanks above all to the subsequent critical edition.

If the history and legend of Mary Stuart was grounded, even before Schiller, in the relationship between love and power, Bardari (and Donizetti) chose to put the emphasis on the first of these, creating a psychological battlefield counterposing two leading ladies and a tenor in eighteenth century style. However, from a musical perspective, there is a subtle, modern differentiation between the two leading characters, which prompted the composer to make theatrical and musical decisions soon to be turned into opera.

Photo: Ben van Duin