(ANSA) - ROME, MAY 19 - Damiano Michieletto inaugurates the 2021 edition of the Glyndebourne Festival with Kát'a Kabanová by Leoš Janáček. He is the first Italian director invited to stage a new production at the Festival held in the English county of East Sussex after 50 years. Before him, only Franco Enriquez in 1971 with his Cosi fantutte and Franco Zeffirelli in 1968 with the Elixir of Love were called to air an unpublished staging in the kermesse founded by John Christie. The spectacle, staged from Thursday 20 May to Saturday 19 June, is directed by the Englishman Robin Ticciati, on the podium of the LondonPhilharmonic Orchestra.
Michieletto comes up with a 20th century classic and one of Janáček's most shocking titles, which has been missing from Glyndebourne for twenty years. "Once again family relationships are at the center of musical writing and narration - explains the director -. The theme of dynamics within the family is one of the cornerstones of my theatrical readings, and Janáček has offered me a lot in this sense.
Also in Kát'a Kabanová we have a family drama with a female protagonist at the center. My analysis starts with deepening the dysfunctional constellation of the family, to translate it with strong theatrical symbols and signs ".
With him Paolo Fantin for the sets, Carla Teti for the costumes and Alessandro Carletti for the lights. The cast sees soprano Kateřina Knĕžíková, tenors Nicky Spence and David Butt Philip in the parts of Kát'a Kabanová, Tichon and Boris, protagonists of the tormented love triangle. Katarina Dalayman plays Kabanicha. Aigul Akhmetshina and Thomas Atkins play the role of Varvara and Vána Kudrjaš, Alexander Vassiliev plays Dikoj.
The three-act opera by Leós Janàček Kát'a Kabanová is taken from The Hurricane, an 1859 drama by Aleksandr Ostrovskij, considered one of the founders of modern Russian theater.
The Glyndebourne Festival returns after a year of stop for the Covid emergency. Known throughout the world, it hosts around 150,000 spectators annually. Among the commitments of Michieletto, the resumption of the new film-opera Gianni Schicchi produced by GenomaFilms and a new production of Les Contes d'Hoffmann at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. (HANDLE).