2024 SYMPHONIC SEASON OF THE TEATRO LIRICO GIUSEPPE VERDI DI TRIESTE
From 27 September to 22 December 2024
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3rd Concert
Friday 11 October 2024 at 7:30 pm
Conductor TOMMASO TURCHETTA
Soprano MARIE-PIERRE ROY
Piano GIACOMO FUGA
Choir master PAOLO LONGO
PROGRAMME
CESARE BARISON
Tre momenti lirici per un melodramma
SANDRO FUGA
Toccata for piano and orchestra
LUIGI DALLAPICCOLA
Cinque frammenti di Saffo – Liriche greche
IGOR STRAVINSKIJ
Symphony of Psalms
Orchestra and Choir by Fondazione Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi di Trieste
A tribute to Trieste’s historic vocation for contemporary music and – in a broader sense – to the city’s tradition of modernity, this concert is the third one opening with a work by Cesare Barison, a great protagonist of Trieste’s 20th-century musical life. Indeed, 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of Barison’s death, whereas 2025 will be the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. The second performance is a piece by Sandro Fuga, winner of the “City of Trieste” Symphony Composition in 1952, originally performed by the great pianist Maria Tipo and now played by the composer’s son Giacomo Fuga. The programme continues with Istrian composer Luigi Dallapiccola – who studied music in Trieste – and finally with Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms.
Conducted by the young Tommaso Turchetta, first Kapellmeister in Innsbruck and now in Essen, the concert will feature the voice of renowned soprano Marie Pierre Roy, especially confident with the Baroque and contemporary repertoire, and the talent of pianist Giacomo Fuga, son of composer Sandro Fuga and therefore the interpreter par excellence of his father’s works. The Teatro Verdi here offers its audience a unique opportunity to celebrate the city’s vocation for innovation, creative audacity and forward-looking culture.
The concert opens with Tre momenti lirici per un melodramma by Cesare Barison, an outstanding violinist, teacher, composer, as well as superintendent of the Teatro Verdi from 1945 to 1954. In this capacity, he was the real protagonist of the theatre’s pivotal role in the musical culture of his time – indeed, it was with him that the young von Karajan’s career took off from the Verdi, the theatre came to host some of the 20th century greatest premieres with Copland or Hindemith, and Wagner’s Ring cycle became a must-see production. Finally, it is thanks to Barison that Maria Callas came to Trieste to perform as Bellini’s Norma.
In those years, while the city was gaining its worldwide reputation, everybody was looking at the future and in 1949 Mayor Gianni Bartoli founded the “City of Trieste” Symphony Composition to “promote, encourage, and stimulate certain cultural activities, that are always alive in our City.” With the active support of the Tartini Conservatory of Music, of Teatro Verdi and its Orchestra, the Symphony Competition was eventually launched. In 1952, it was won by Sandro Fuga, a composer born in the Veneto region who studied music at the Turin Conservatory, and grandson of composer Luigi Nono. He won the competition with his Toccata for Piano and Orchestra, which finally returns to the Teatro Verdi with the composer’s son Giacomo Fuga at the piano (the great Maria Tipo performed the same piece over 70 years ago).
Our path down memory lane continues with Istrian composer Luigi Dallapiccola, a pillar of the 20th century international musical scene from Berlin to the U.S.. His Cinque frammenti di Saffo – Liriche greche was composed in 1942 based on the translation of Salvatore Quasimodo’s poems and performed only after the end of the war. Dallapiccola’s work, an attempt to escape from the painful reality of wartime, paves the way for the grand neoclassical finale of the concert, with Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, based on three Davidic psalms – first in Slavonic, then in Latin. The symphony was revised in 1948, also developing another fundamental element: i.e. the presence of the human voice in 20th century symphonic compositions.