Mehta and Livermore discuss the final rehearsals of Verdi's La forza del destino at the Palau de les Arts
20.05.2014
– Livermore presents a staging with a strong psychological component and nods to German expressionist cinema and the work of Hitchcock
– American tenor Gregory Kunde and Ukrainian soprano Liudmila Monastirska headline the cast of this new production
– On May 27th, there will be a Les Arts per a tots day with 50 percent discounts on shows at this festival.
Valencia. Zubin Mehta and Davide Livermore tackle the final rehearsals of Verdi's La forza de destino at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía, the opera that opens the seventh edition of the Festival del Mediterrani on May 31.
The maestro from Bombay offers his fourth Verdi performance with the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana. Mehta, who is also conducting Puccini's Turandot and a concert of works by Richard Strauss as part of this musical event, has become the leading conductor for the Palau de les Arts' resident orchestra this season.
Musical director of Verdi's La Traviata and Wagner's Die Walküre , with which the Valencian arts center began the 2013-14 Season, Maestro Mehta led the OCV's first tour of China, the first major tour undertaken by a Spanish orchestra in the Asian country.
Zubin Mehta is teaming up again with Davide Livermore after the success of Verdi's Otello last year. The Turin-born director is the artistic director of the Centre de Perfeccionament Plácido Domingo and has also directed other productions for the Palau de les Arts, such as Puccini's La Bohème and Vivaldi's L'incoronazione di Dario .
Davide Livermore presents a staging of Verdi's La forza del destino with a strong psychological component. Set in the 1940s, in a universe parallel to World War II but without references or allusions to that historical period, the Turin-born director's work focuses on "the suffering of souls and the distortion of reality that this entails."
As Livermore himself explains, the stage is an architectural space onto which this anguish is projected, a distorted and unsettling world; “what you see isn’t real,” the stage director points out. To achieve this, he employs techniques and resources of cinematic language inspired by two classics of the seventh art: Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), considered the first manifestation of cinematic expressionism, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958).
Distribution of consolidated values
The Palau de les Arts has brought together for the cast of La forza del destino well-known performers of the Italian repertoire who have recently participated in some of the most successful productions presented in the capital of the Turia.
American tenor Gregory Kunde, winner of the Campoamor Theater Prize for his Otello at the past Festival del Mediterrani, and Liudmila Monastirska, who sang in Massenet's Le Cid under the direction of Plácido Domingo, embody, respectively, Don Alvaro and Leonora, the unfortunate lovers who are the protagonists of La forza del destino .
The Italian baritone Simone Piazzola (Don Carlo di Vargas), who sang in La Traviata in 2013, the Danish bass Stephen Milling (Padre Guardiano), acclaimed for his performances in Parsifal and Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle , as well as in Belioz's Les Troyens , the Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk (Preziosilla), who brought Azucena to life in Il trovatore in 2012, and the South Korean bass In-Sung Sim (Marchese di Calatrava), Sarastro in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte , The cast is completed in 2013.
The Santiago Calatrava building will host a total of four performances of Verdi's La forza del destino , on May 31 and June 5, 10 and 14.
The force of destiny
La forza del destino is an opera in four acts with music by Giuseppe Verdi and an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Don Álvaro o La fuerza del sino (1835) by the Spaniard Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas.
The work originated as a commission from the Imperial Theatre of St. Petersburg, where it premiered on November 10, 1862. However, the composer from Busseto was not entirely satisfied and, due to Piave's illness, entrusted Antonio Ghislanzoni with a new version of the text for its Italian premiere. This second version was presented on February 27, 1869, at La Scala in Milan.
Arts for everyone
The Palau de les Arts Sofía announces that on May 27th, a special "Les Arts per a tots" (Arts for Everyone) ticket sale will take place at the Calatrava building's box office. Tickets for all performances of the 7th Festival del Mediterrani will be 50% off for eligible groups. The box office will be open continuously from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM.
Holders of the Carnet Jove, the International Student Card (ISIC), the Large Family title, people in a situation of unemployment or with a degree of disability equal to or greater than 33% and retirees over 65 years of age and pensioners holding the Cultural Card of the Generalitat Valenciana, will be able to enjoy a 50% discount on the tickets for any of the performance days and in all areas of the capacity except for those corresponding to Turandot , by Puccini, for which the tickets have been sold out for all performances except for 5% of the capacity reserved for sale on the same day of the performance.
