2024-2025 OPERA AND BALLET SEASON
LA TRAVIATA by Giuseppe Verdi
Performances 8, 9, 10, 15, 16 and 17 November, 13 December in Udine, 19 December in Pordenone
Concertmaster and Conductor ENRICO CALESSO
Director ARNAUD BERNARD
Set designer ALESSANDRO CAMERA
Costume designer CARLA RICOTTI
NEW STAGE SET BY FONDAZIONE TEATRO LIRICO GIUSEPPE VERDI DI TRIESTE
Main characters and performers
Violetta Valéry MARIA GRAZIA SCHIAVO / FRANCESCA SASSU
Alfredo Germont ANTONIO POLI / KLODJAN KAÇANI
Giorgio Germont ROBERTO FRONTALI /FEDERICO LONGHI
Flora Bervoix ELEONORA VACCHI
Gastone SAVERIO FIORE
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DON QUIXOTE by Aloisius Ludwig Minkus
ballet
Performances 30 November, 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 December
Choreography by DENIS MATVIENKO
Conductor AYRTON DESIMPELAERE
Set and costume designer NEVEN MIHIĆ
Light designer ANDREJ HAJDNIJAK
SOLOISTS AND DANCERS BY SNG OPERA IN BALET OF LJUBLJANA
Orchestra and technicians by Fondazione Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi di Trieste
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DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performances 17, 18, 19, 24, 25 and 26 January 2025
Concertmaster and Conductor BEATRICE VENEZI
Director, set and costume designer IVAN STEFANUTTI
NEW PRODUCTION BY FONDAZIONE TEATRO LIRICO GIUSEPPE VERDI DI TRIESTE
Main characters and performers
Konstanze ANNA AGLATOVA
Belmonte RUZIL GATIN
Osmin ANDREA SILVESTRELLI
Blonde MARIA SARDARYAN
Pedrillo FRANCESCO MARSIGLIA
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IL TABARRO-SUOR ANGELICA-GIANNI SCHICCHI by Giacomo Puccini
Performances 21, 22, 23 and 28 February, 1 and 2 March 2025
Concertmaster and Conductor FRANCESCO IVAN CIAMPA
Director PIER FRANCESCO MAESTRINI
Set designer NICÓLAS BONI
Costume designer STEFANIA SCARAGGI
PRODUCTION BY FONDAZIONE TEATRO LIRICO GIUSEPPE VERDI DI TRIESTE IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH
FONDAZIONE TEATRO COMUNALE DI BOLOGNA
Main characters and performers
IL TABARRO
Michele ROMAN BURDENKO
Giorgietta OLGA MASLOVA
Luigi MIKHEIL SHESHABERIDZE
SUOR ANGELICA
Sister Angelica ANASTASIA BARTOLI
The abbess GIOVANNA LANZA
The Mistress of the novices ERICA ZULIKHA BENATO
The Princess, Sister Angelica’s aunt CHIARA MOGINI
GIANNI SCHICCHI
Gianni Schicchi ROMAN BURDENKO
Lauretta SARA CORTOLEZZIS
Rinuccio RICCARDO RADOS
La Ciesca ERICA ZULIKHA BENATO
Gherardo ENRICO IVIGLIA
Marco NICOLÒ CERIANI
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DER FLIEGENDE HOLLȀNDER by Richard Wagner
Performances 21, 22, 23, 28, 29 and 30 March 2025
Concertmaster and Conductor ENRICO CALESSO
Director HENNING BROCKHAUS
Set designer ALFONS FLORES
Costume designer GIANCARLO COLIS
NEW PRODUCTION BY FONDAZIONE TEATRO LIRICO GIUSEPPE VERDI DI TRIESTE
Main characters and performers
Der Holländer JAMES RUTHERFORD
Erik CLAY HILLEY
Senta ELENA BATOUKOVA-KERL
Daland ALBERT DOHMEN
LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR by Gaetano Donizetti
Performances 17, 18, 22, 24, 26 and 27 April 2025
Concertmaster and Conductor DANIEL OREN
Director BRUNO BERGER-GORSKI
Set designer CARMEN CASTAÑÓN
PRODUCTION BY AMIGOS CANARIOS DE LA ÓPERA DE LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIA
Main characters and performers
Lucia JESSICA PRATT
Edgardo STEFAN POP
Lord Enrico MAXIM LISIIN
Raimondo CARLO LEPORE
Alisa MIRIAM ARTIACO
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RIGOLETTO by Giuseppe Verdi
Performances 16, 17, 18, 23, 24 and 25 May 2025, 31 May in Udine
Concertmaster and Conductor DANIEL OREN
Director VIVIEN HEWITT
PRODUCTION BY FONDAZIONE TEATRO LIRICO GIUSEPPE VERDI DI TRIESTE
Main characters and performers
Rigoletto AMARTUVSHIN ENKHBAT
Gilda ENKELEDA KAMANI
The Duke of Mantua GALEANO SALAS
Magdalena MARTINA BELLI
Sparafucile CARLO STRIULI
Countess Ceprano MIRIAM ARTIACO
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CANDIDE by Leonard Bernstein
Performances 13, 14, 15, 19, 21 and 22 June 2025
Conductor KEVIN RHODES
Director RENATO ZANELLA
Set designer ALESSANDRO CAMERA
PRODUCTION BY FONDAZIONE TEATRO LIRICO GIUSEPPE VERDI DI TRIESTE IN CO-PRODUCTION WITH
FONDAZIONE TEATRO COMUNALE DI BOLOGNA
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CHOIR MASTER PAOLO LONGO
ORCHESTRA, CHOIR AND TECHNICIANS BY FONDAZIONE TEATRO LIRICO GIUSEPPE VERDI DI TRIESTE
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Eight performances, six of which produced by Teatro Verdi in its Trieste workshops, and two an unprecedented co-production with Teatro Comunale di Bologna. This year’s programme includes Wagner’s comeback and Bernstein’s rare Candide (for the twentieth-century repertoire), with the end-of-season debut of choreographer Renato Zanella as director. This season is enhanced by the presence of remarkable young artists such as Amartuvshin Enkhbat, Anastasia Bartoli and Roman Burdenko, and acclaimed conductors in the specific repertoires, such as Ciampa for Puccini’s Triptych, Calesso for Der Fliegende Holländer and Oren for Rigoletto. With talented and reliable directors such as Arnoud Bernard or Henning Brockhaus, and the choice of a work by Donizetti for the second year in a row, Trieste reclaims its historic cultural role and great musical tradition in the nineteenth-century splendour of Teatro Verdi.
The season opens on 8 November with the most popular and cinematic of Verdi’s titles, La Traviata, in the new production –especially for the Verdi – by French director Arnoud Bernard, known for his reinterpretations, intriguing yet never straying from impeccable classicism. On the podium is Designated Permanent Music Director Enrico Calesso, who conducted La Traviata for the first time in 2018 at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and has since made it one of his signature pieces on the many stages in Europe where he regularly conducts. The cast is led by Neapolitan Maria Grazia Schiavo as Violetta, an experienced artist and a voice praised by conductors such as Muti and Dantone, and an eminent presence on the most prestigious stages, from Salzburg to La Scala. Her Alfredo is played by Antonio Poli, among the most highly regarded tenors of the young generation.
December will close with the Don Quixote ballet, which confirms the well-established artistic and creative partnership with Ljubljana, a small Slovenian Salzburg not far away from Trieste. The lively music and dance centre led by the Veronese choreographer Renato Zanella will bring to Trieste Ludwig Minkus’s celebrated 19th-century title based on Marius Petipa’s libretto and choreography but with Alexander Gorky’s 1900 alterations, for a timeless dance classic performed with philological rigour and all the freshness of the Ljubljana ballet.
In January, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail will open the year with the new staging of director, set and costume designer Ivan Stefanutti and Beatrice Venezi on the podium – again on a Mozart title. The young and beautiful Russian soprano Anna Aglatova – a surprise for the Italian audience – will be Konstanze, while the renowned Russian tenor Ruzil Gatin will be Belmonte, from the Rossini Opera Festival at La Scala. In January, the Teatro Verdi – in collaboration with PromoTurismoFVG and the Municipality of Trieste – will also host the annual meeting of ICMA (International Classical Music Awards), an association bringing together the most important European classical music publications, thus transforming Trieste into a true international capital of musical debate for a few days.
February will continue with Puccini’s Triptych (Tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi) in co-production with the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, marking the launch of a fresh synergy between two of Italy’s most important historical Foundations, which will continue in June with Bernstein’s Candide. The performance will be directed by the highly regarded Pier Francesco Maestrini, and conducted by Ivan Ciampa, one of the most internationally-acclaimed conductors of Italian opera. The – obviously very large – cast features such important voices as Russian baritone Roman Burdenko, already known and appreciated in Trieste, Anastasia Bartoli, among the most talented emerging sopranos of her generation, the young Riccardo Rados, performing in his hometown, and the renowned Russian soprano Olga Maslova, recently acclaimed in the Nabucco.
March will finally celebrate Wagner’s return to Trieste, consolidating one of the city’s most distinctive musical traditions since the late 19th century, which – in recent years – seemed instead to have been confined to the halls of the Schmidl Theater Museum: Die Fliegende Holländer, directed by the German Henning Brockhaus, now at home at the Teatro Verdi and a true pillar of twentieth-century European theatrical creativity from Strehler onward, and conducted – for the first time – by Enrico Calesso, one of the best interpreters of Wagner from the German area. The cast brings together four experienced Wagnerian singers: bass-baritone James Rutherford will be Der Holländer, American tenor Clay Hilley will be Erik, dramatic soprano Elena Batoukova-Kerl will be Senta, and German bass-baritone Albert Dolmen will be Daland.
In April, the Teatro Verdi will continue its exploration – started during the last season – of Donizetti with Lucia di Lammermoor. The sumptuous production by the Opera of Las Palmas, directed by German-Polish director Bruno Berger-Gorski, will see the beloved Daniel Oren back on the podium of the Verdi Orchestra and Jessica Pratt – the ultimate Bel Canto diva – as Lucia in her Trieste debut.
In May, Oren will conduct Rigoletto in the new production by Teatro Verdi, with Amartuvshin Enkhbat as Rigoletto. A guarantee of success after the baritone’s excellent and highly-praised debut at La Scala – where the return of Rigoletto had been long-awaited – and in light of the young and talented international cast.
Finally, June will see a grand 20th-century closing event with Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, directed by Renato Zanella. The performance will mark the latter’s debut as a director. Zanella is already known as one of Europe’s most brilliant ballet choreographers – from the Vienna Opera to the Arena of Verona – and, in Trieste, as an effervescent and creative personality. On the podium will be the accomplished Kevin Rhodes, who will certainly give the right touch to this rare two-act operetta, composed by Bernstein at the time when Trieste was an Anglo-American protectorate, a true enclave of Anglo-Saxon culture on Italian soil.
Paolo Rodda, Artistic Director: “I am very pleased with this season, which I designed trying to approach the many different souls of our theatre, both in the past and today. I am thinking of the more traditionalist audiences, who will no doubt appreciate the ever-loved Verdi and Puccini, Oren’s conducting style and the easily enjoyable stage sets; but also of younger audiences, who need new stimuli to bring them closer to the opera; of the great opera enthusiasts who travel Europe always in search of new, intriguing performances; and, last but not least, of foreign audiences, who have become a regular presence in our theatre and must be able to feel at home here, too. Without forgetting, indeed rekindling, the great history of our theatre, which, I recall, used to be – and needs to become again –a point of reference on certain repertoires, such as contemporary or German opera.”
Today – adds Music Director Enrico Calesso– I am very happy to be here with Superintendent Giuliano Polo and Artistic Director Paolo Rodda to present a high-profile symphonic and opera season, characterized by the interplay between the great Italian and European – especially German – repertoire. On a personal level, I am very pleased to find Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, which has been a constant throughout my career, and to make my debut with Der fliegende Holländer, drawing on the experience I gained from my previous Wagnerian concerts in Germany, from the Ring to Tristan, from Parsifal to Lohengrin.
Superintendent Giuliano Polo emphasizes: “After increasing the number of titles, it was time to focus our narrative also on the excellence of our craft workshops, enhancing our original productions. This year, also thanks to the synergy with the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, I would say we have outdone ourselves with as many as six titles entirely produced in our city. This is an important milestone as theatre workshops are testimony to the excellence of our people’s unique manufacturing skills, reminding – in a different but effective way – our large foreign audience of the great creative quality of Made-in-Italy productions, and proving that the theatre is, to all intents and purposes, an efficient, productive industry that is constantly renewing itself. I am equally pleased to say that synergies are multiplying in the city. I am thinking, for example, of the strengthening of relations with the University, or collaborations with German language and culture associations, but also outside Trieste, such as the beautiful, new collaboration with Bologna. In short, our theatre is experiencing renewed momentum, which can only be beneficial at this favourable time for Trieste, in the light of harmonious collective growth.”
The subscription campaign opens on Tuesday, 25 June 2024 and closes on Sunday, 17 November 2024. Season 23-24 subscribers can confirm their seats until Saturday, 28 September 2024. Seats will be assigned to new subscribers starting from Tuesday, 1 October 2024. Subscriptions must be collected by Saturday, 26 October 2024. Ticket sales for individual performances will begin on Tuesday, 15 October 2024.
Subscription and ticket prices are unchanged from last season. Special discounts for young people under 34 are also confirmed, with especially favourable prices for subscriptions and single tickets.
| 2024-2025 OPERA AND BALLET SEASON | 8 PERFORMANCES | |
| Seats | Prices | |
| PREMIERE | STANDARD | |
| First Chair, Stalls, stalls circle and I order box seat (row 1) | € 638,00 | € 561,00 |
| Stalls circle and I order side box, Stalls circle and I order side box “barcaccia” (row 1) | € 457,00 | € 404,00 |
| Dress circle: row 1, 2 central seats | € 431,00 | € 381,00 |
| Dress circle: row 2 side seats / II order box | € 364,00 | € 325,00 |
| Upper circle, III order box seat | € 265,00 | € 236,00 |
| Gallery, upper circle (row 6, 7), dress circle (row 4, 5, 6), stalls circle and I order side box “barcaccia” (row 2, 3) | € 166,00 | € 146,00 |
| People under 34: all areas | € 176,00 | € 166,00 |
Trieste, 21 June 2024