Rigoletto live, Opera Roma returns to the stage at the Circus Maximus

(ANSA) - ROME, JULY 10 - A Rigoletto on the road, told as a noir story of crimes and passions, like a film where the languages ​​of theater and cinema merge, with solutions designed to overcome the limits imposed by Covid 19 and a decisive use of technology that opens the way to new roads. The Opera di Roma returns on July 16 with Verdi's masterpiece directed by Daniele Gatti and directed by Damiano Michieletto to offer live performances in scenic form in the magical set of the Circus Maximus, transformed for the first time into a temple of melodrama. The extraordinary nature of the event is testified by the parterre de rois announced for the first, by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, to the presidents of the Senate and Chamber Maria Elisabetta Casellati and Roberto Fico, to the Minister of Cultural Heritage and Tourism Dario Franceschini, to the US ambassadors , France, Germany, England and Spain, which will be welcomed by the mayor of the capital Virginia Raggi, president of the Opera House. The superintendent Carlo Fuortes underlined with satisfaction that Rigoletto is a real production made in a month. '' To do this - he said - we built a real theater in the Circus Maximus with a 1,500 square meter stage to allow distance between singers, musicians and the choir. I believe it is the only large European theater that manages to start again with a new large production totally designed for anti-Coronavirus standards ''. Spectators who can take place will be 1400 using four entrances.
The sanitary measures have pushed to imagine a totally new and particular show: the singers will not be able to touch each other, when they exchange objects they will have gloves but always at a distance. But the novelty will be the presence of the images - thanks to the collaboration of Indigo Film-, from those taken live by three steadycam operators who will move on the stage and relaunch them on the giant screen, to the 20 videos that will tell dreams, memories, facts and emotions by adding elements and suggestions to the story to bring the artists closer to the public. The Verdi drama of passion, betrayal and revenge which has as its protagonist the hunchback court jester, in Michieletto's vision is set in an imaginary criminal world of the eighties, told with cinematic rhythm in a mixture of realism and dreamlike vision. "It's a production born two months ago in full lockdown - he says - the Circus Maximus is a place for the city. In this Rigoletto on the road, outdoors there are cars, a caravan, a carousel ... The public will not notice of the distancing of the singers ".
For Daniele Gatti Rigoletto is one of Verdi's great masterpieces, his most modern work that seems to be written in the cast but that the composer meditated for a long time. The master avoids talking about this commitment as a challenge: '' The fundamental thing - he says - is to say that today the Opera di Roma is here, we are here, among the first to return to meet the public with a work in scenic form and not in concert form. Distancing can stimulate the imagination of a director and an orchestra conductor without forcing them to modify the original layout. It will be a surprise for me and the public to see how this new Rigoletto will work. '' The role of the protagonist is entrusted to Roberto Frontali. Beside him Iván Ayón Rivas (Duke of Mantua), Rosa Feola (Gilda), Riccardo Zanellato (Sparafucile), Martina Belli (Maddalena), Gabriele Sagona (Count of Monterone). After the premiere of Thursday 16 July which will be broadcast live on Rai 5, the show will be repeated on Saturday 18 and Monday 20. (ANSA).