OPERA

ROME

Teatro dell'Opera di Roma moves out into the open at Circo Massimo for its summer season with 26 performances in all, to include two operas, one ballet and a concert. At Circo Massimo there is space for 1,000 spectators even under strict anti-covid regulations.

IL TROVATORE BY VERDI

15 JUNE-6 JULY

Conducted by Daniele Gatti and directed by Lorenzo Mariani this is a new production of Verdi's opera, strictly in black and white. There will be six performances. Fabio Sartori and Piero Pretti alternate in the role of Manrico. Roberta Mantegna, a rising star of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma will sing the part of Leonora. Two other singers from the opera theatre's Fabbrica Young Artists training programme, Marianna Mappa and Domingo Pellicola, take the parts of Ines and Ruiz.

Opera returns to the Circus Maximus this summer. Photo Yasuko Kageyama / TOR.

MADAMA BUTTERFLY BY PUCCINI

16 JULY-6 AUG

This is a co-production with the Sydney Opera House, conducted by Donato Renzetti and directed by Alex Ollé, one of the artistic directors of La Fura dels Baus. This production was first performed at the open-air Handa Opera, overlooking Sydney Harbour in 2014, so Circo Massimo will make a very different outdoor setting. In a 2014 YouTube interview Ollé talks about Madama Butterfly, which was premiered in 1904 at La Scala, as still being a very contemporary theme. Corinne Winters sings Cio-CioSan, Adriana Di Paola as Suzuki and Saimir Pirgu, the AlbanianItalian tenor and Angelo Villari alternate in the part of Pinkerton. Pirgu's opera debut was in Così fan tutte under Claudio Abbado and he also became one of Pavarotti's pupils. To quote The New York Times: "His singing sounds spontaneous and unforced, graced by an intuitive play of light and shade and a silken touch."

FLORENCE

Maggio Musicale presents three events for opera lovers. 4-19 June La Forza del destino by Giuseppe Verdi in a new production, conducted by Zubin Metha and directed by Carlus Padrissa, another director from Barcelona's La Fura dels Baus stable. 27 June Anna Netrebko sings operatic arias by Verdi. 28 June Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria directed by Robert Carsen and conducted by Ottavio Dantone.