by In Trieste
A grand comeback for Trieste’s opera house, Teatro Verdi, on Friday, 25 June, which reopened to public after months of closure with spectacular adaptation of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata.
Trieste’s Verdi reopened its doors to public, becoming one of the world’s first opera houses to return to the stage with a production that includes a chorus, orchestra and soloists after months of lockdown. On offer is Verdi’s La Traviata, tweaked to reflect life in the time of Covid-19.
Masked members of the orchestra, conducted by in-house music director Michelangelo Mazza, and the choir performed arias by Giuseppe Verdi directed by Francesca Tosi, with about 500 masked people watching the opera from the surrounding rows.
With scenes of ballroom dances, social gatherings and passionate embraces punctuating the original production, the task of redesigning the stage concept fell to the director Mazza. Minutes into the staging of La Traviata, the surgical masks come off, timed with the rising notes of an orchestra led by the conductor.
The tale of La Traviata, woven through with one character’s battle with tuberculosis, seemed like the perfect opera to open the season with. “It’s not that La Traviata is the story of an epidemic, but it’s clear that one cannot watch this opera without thinking of what we’re living through,” said Verdi’s artistic director Antonio Tasca.
The beautiful performance of Ruth Iniesta (Violetta Valéry) and Marco Ciaponi (Alfred Germont) concluded the first act with a stirring encore of Follia, Follia.
Trieste’s Verdi opera house reopening raises hopes of a gradual resumption of our city’s vivid cultural life after months of shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
