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Making the most of Florence’s Opera House from Tosca to Boris The 68th Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
[Susan Glasspool]
Have you ever been to the opera? Or to a really good concert of classical music? If you haven’t, now is your chance! The Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Florence’s opera house puts on some excellent performances throughout the year - don’t miss some very good concerts in March and April - and its production reaches its high point with the famous Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Florence May Music Festival), this year in its 68th year, though it actually starts at the end of April.
The story of Tosca is a typical romantic tragedy, the music is beautiful and the performance, conducted by Florence’s own adopted Zubin Mehta, who has done so much for the city and the theatre, is certain to be enjoyable, even for first time opera goers. Puccini moreover is Tuscany’s very own composer, and therefore doubly popular here.
Floria Tosca is a beautiful lady who is wildly in love with Mario Cavaradossi and the opera shows them meeting in a church where he is carrying out a religious painting (the Madonna however looks very like Tosca!). There he finds Angelotti, a friend and an escaped prisoner seeking sanctuary. Mario befriends him, helping him away in the disguise of a woman.
Eventually the police arrive, under the command of the villain of the piece, Scarpia, and all is discovered. Scarpia immediately becomes enamoured with Tosca and tries to convince her that Mario is unfaithful. Mario is arrested and tortured for having helped his friend and in her distress Tosca innocently gives Angellotti away. She pleads with Scarpia release her lover, but Scarpia is adamant, Mario must die. In the end he promises her that if she will become his mistress, then he will order his men to pretend to shoot Mario, after which they can both escape to freedom. She agrees, as long as Mario is saved, but stabs Scarpia to death once she thinks he has given the order not to kill him. However, in spite of Scarpia’s promise to use a blank cartridge, Mario really is shot and when Tosca realises he is dead, she throws herself off the walls of Castel Sant’Angelo in desperation.
The 68th Maggio Musicale Fiorentino will cover two whole months of operas, concerts, ballets and exhibiitons from April 30th to June 30th. It will be hosting world famous directors and conductors, singers and soloists, alongside exhibitions at the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace.
It includes the first concerts here by Claudio Abbado’s Orchestra Mozart and Chailly’s Orchestra Verdi, great directors like Nekrosius, Barberio Corsetti and Jonathan Miller, conductors like Mehta and Bychkov, an exhibition on Maria Callas and her stage jewellery in Florence - yes she performed in this theatre too, in fact, it was here that her career first started.
The Festival’s grand final will be held, after its closure, with the traditional free concert (the Ninth Symphony by Beethoven and the "Inno alla gioia"), conducted by Zubin Mehta in Piazza Signoria on July 8th.
The Foundation running the theatre has made every effort to satisfy its international public. Although Superintendent G. van Straten and Art Director G. Tangucci were unfortunately forced to postpone the inclusion of a fourth opera in the programme this year, there are still three operas, starting with a new staging of Puccini’s "Tosca" this time directed by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, again conducted by Zubin Mehta and with Violeta Urmana and Ruggero Raimondi.
Mehta is also conducting Don Giovanni by Mozart, another delightful opera (no hankies required). Semyon Bychkov, principal conductor here for several years, returns to the Maggio with a masterpiece that perfectly suits his musical nature, in other words, Boris Godunov, with the great Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto and staged by the fascinating Lithuanian director Eimuntas Nekrosius.
The concerts include Sinfonia Mehta’s tribute to Luciano Berio with the Swingle Singers, performed with the Quattro pezzi sacri by Verdi; Mehta also conducts the concert by the wonderful violinist Gil Shaham with music by Mozart, Brahms e Webern. Bychkov will be conducting the Fifth Symphony by Mahler - from the famous Adagietto used by Visconti in Death in Venice - with pianist-prodigy Lang Lang.
It is also the Orchestra Verdi’s first visit here, conducted by Riccardo Chailly.
Soloists include Bruno Canino and Antonio Ballista who propose the unusual transcription by Liszt of the Ninth Symphony by Beethoven, together with a first performance of Boulevard promenade, which the Maggio commissioned Paolo Castaldi to compose to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the piano duet. Aldo Ciccolini will prepare a refined programme based on Debussy and the Quadri di un'esposizione by Musorgskij, while a great actress, Anna Proclemer, will give a recital at the Teatro della Pergola of Anna dei pianoforti from texts by Alberto Savinio.
The traditional ballet boasts a new version of Romeo and Juliet" by Mancini, director of MaggioDanza. The costumes will be carried out by Florentine designer Cesare Fabbri in collaboration with Pitti Immagine. As mentioned above the Festival closes on June 30th but reaches its final high point with the concert conducted in front of the Loggia dei Lanzi by Mehta on July 8th.
Lastly, for the curious the illustration that represents the 68th Maggio is signed this year by Emanuele Luzzati, set and costume designer at the Festival from the 1950’s.
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