From 15 December 2024, the two one-act: "Mavra" and "Gianni Schicchi"

Last opera show of 2024 at the Teatro del Maggio: on sunday, December 15th, in the Main Hall at 5pm, the first recital of the ‘Dittico’: "Mavra" by Igor Stravinskij and "Gianni Schicchi" by Giacomo Puccini.

On the podium maestro Francesco Lanzillotta. 
Direction, scenes, costumes and lights design are by Denis Krief.

The December 20th performance will be broadcast live on Rai Radio 3 

Florence, December 10th, 2024 -  After the amazing successes of Madama Butterfly and La traviata, the 2024 opera season for the Teatro del Maggio comes to an end: in the Main Hall a particular and interesting ‘Dittico’ formed by Igor Stravinsky's Mavra of and one of the most beloved short operas of the '900, Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini with which tMaggio ends its tribute to the great composer on the occasion of the celebrations for the centenary of his death. On the podium, at the head of the Maggio Orchestra,  maestro Francesco Lanzillotta. The direction, scenes, costumes and lighting of both operas are by Denis Krief.

Four performances planned in the program: December 15th at 5pm; on December 18th and 20th at 8pm and on December 22nd at 3:30pm.

The show starts with Mavra, an ‘opera buffa’ in one act by Igor Stravinskij composed between 1921 and 1922.  The libretto is by Boris Kochno and is taken from the novella in verse The House of Kolomna by Aleksandr Puskin. The idea came to the composer during his stay in London and was developed together with the theatre impresario Sergei Pavlovich Yagilev: it was decided to compose a small opera that would serve as prologue to the revival of Sleeping Beauty by Čajkovskij. Stravinskij chose as the subject of his new work The House of Kolomna by Puskin because he considered it suitable for a comic opera and asked Boris Kochno, at that time a collaborator of Diagilev, to write the libretto. 

Julia Muzychenko, who has just been successful in Traviata, plays the leading lady of Mavra’s story, Paraša, and the leading lady of Gianni Schicchi, Lauretta: "The roles of Paraša in Mavra and Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi, which I play in this Dittico, are very similar from a point of view but also, musically speaking, very different. Paraša is a young woman in love with the Ussaro of the story but, for her, to develop this love is really complex; she still lives with her mother and therefore, given her great firmness in wanting to spend more time with her lover, He decides to 'transform' this Ussaro in a woman so that he can enter the house without raising suspicion. Stravinskij’s music in this opera is very particular, we find elements of belcanto but also references to Russian popular music as well as dissonant and almost grotesque tones. In the Gianni Schicchi I give instead voice to Lauretta that, like Paraša, is a young lover, and just as the protagonist of Mavra does not fear to do everything to be able to crown this love. Besides this it is really exciting to be able to interpret here the famous air O mio babbino caro since I sing here in Florence and for Florence; it is really a unique feeling". Along with her Kseniia Nikolaieva in the part of La madre; Aleksandra Meteleva as La vecina and Iván Ayón Rivas, who returns to the scene of Maggio after La traviata staged in July 2019, in the part of the Ussaro.

Mavra is followed by one of the most famous short operas of all time, Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini. Part of the famous "Trittico" pucciniano - along with Suor Angelica and Tabarro - is also a short comic opera in one act.  The primary inspiration subject of the opera - linked to Florence, where it is set - is in a passage of the XXX canto from Dante's Inferno, where the protagonist (Gianni Schicchi, precisely) is condemned as "forger of people"; but Dante had also been inspired by a fact that really happened: Gianni Schicchi, from family Cavalcanti, replaced the corpse of Buoso Donati to dictate a false will in favor of the son of this one, Simone - deserted by his father as in the story told by Puccini - but leaving for himself a horse of great value.

In the scene, in the role of the protagonist of the story, Gianni Schicchi, Roberto De Candia, who returns to Maggio after the Falstaff of November 2014 directed by Zubin Mehta: “For me it is a joy to be able to return to Maggio and play one of the most famous Florentine characters ever. Gianni Schicchi is an opera that despite everything remains always current and of course always funny; with the protagonist, whom I have the honor to interpret, who continues to be a character full of energy and irony. It is always wonderful to see how a funny and short opera like the Schicchi still manages to surprise us today and how it is able to be still fresh and 'new' ”. Julia Muzychenko plays Lauretta; Valentina Pernozzoli is Zita; Iván Ayón Rivas is Rinuccio; Yaozhou Hou is Gherardo and Gonzalo Godoy Sepúlveda is Betto di Signa. Also on scene Adriano Gramigni as Simone; Davide Sodini in the double role of Maestro Spinelloccio/Messer Amantio Di Nicolao; Huigang Liu as Pinellino;  Michele Gianquinto in the part of Guccio and three talents of the Accademia del Maggio: Nikoletta Hertsak as Nella; Yurii Strakhov in the part of Marco and Aleksandra Meteleva in that of La Ciesca.

Maestro Lanzillotta returns to Maggio after  conducting Resurrezione by Franco Alfano in January 2020, has underlined the particularity of Stravinskij’s opera and the great compositional mastery of Gianni Schicchi by Puccini: "Mavra is really a particular work and not only because of rare performance: it marks the beginning of what we call 'neoclassical' period by Stravinskij and it is interesting to note how there are musical elements and similarities used by the composer a few years earlier in Histoire du soldat.  I think for example of the whole rhythmic progression of the double basses and cellos of the first number which is exactly identical to the first issue of Histoire du soldat precisely, and it is also interesting how the belcanto - understood as Italian belcanto - is declined within an opera in which there are also musical parts taken from popular music such as ragtime or walzer. All these elements go to compose a very varied work in which the element of the closed number, typical of the Italian buffa opera, remains dominant. So the approach is to make sure that these 'colored' features present in the work are highlighted.  What is always fascinating when opening a score like Gianni Schicchi is first of all the great skill that Puccini has in exalting different situations with the same musical material: I think of the initial theme of the work that is 'translated' immediately after in a different situation: simply changing the tempo and some harmonic elements the theme takes immediately a color and a different meaning".

Speaking of this 'Dittico', Denis Krief - back to Maggio after having directed Puccini’s La rondine in September 2020 and followed the staging of the 2019 Puccini's “Trittico” - highlighted the special feature of this combination: “Combining these two short operas is really an interesting challenge: on the one hand we have a Russian opera, in which we need an approach that we could call almost 'wagnerian'; on the other hand we have what I think is almost the first example of the twentieth century's “Italian comedy” that then, a few years later, will make a huge success in the world of cinema. Mavra is rare execution opera and that instead I did not know: it’s a really funny and pretty story, who finds as protagonists a mother and a daughter - noble but left with almost no money - with the latter who falls in love with the Ussaro and decides, therefore, to take him home in a cook’s costume. Stravinskij’s opera is, in my view, a great tribute to the Russia of that time, the cultural Russia of Alexander Puskin, Mikhail Glinka and Čajkovskij".