The opera, which has opened the season eight times since 1868, is conducted by musical director Riccardo Chailly at the podium of the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra
This year the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella will not attend the premiere at La Scala. There will be none not even Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni nor the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, a trio that marked the Parterre de Rois of the previous edition. However, there is no reason for the absence of the head of state: “The President of the Republic – explains the director of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan Dominique Meyer – will not be able to attend due to a busy schedule. He was embarrassed that he couldn’t come. Meyer continues: “We share a relationship of great appreciation, which has made him always present in the most important moments of the theater’s recent history.”
The first is that of “Don Carlo” by Giuseppe Verdi. The opera, which opens the season of one of the international opera temples on December 7th, is directed by Riccardo Chailly and features international stars on stage. But this year there will not be the parade of institutional figures that left the royal box oversubscribed in 2022.
Instead, they will be there the President of the Senate Ignazio La RussaSecond State Office, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini And the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiulianoin addition to Mayor Beppe Sala et al President of the Lombardy Region Attilio Fontana. It hasn’t happened since thenAndrea Chénier from 2017 that neither the President of the Republic nor the Prime Minister were present.
The crush of institutional figures at the performance of Russian composer Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” last year was a direct result of the delicate international situation. It was a period of intense controversy against Russian artists who did not distance themselves from Putin’s war against Ukraine, and the Ukrainian consul’s request (“Don’t open the season with this work”) had heightened the tension. Von der Leyen’s inauguration was seen against the backdrop of a cooling of tensions. Today the scenario of the premiere that opens the season is different. And the theater, as the director remembers, “It is made for the public.
Music, direction, direction, cast
Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo will be shown (on December 7th at 6 p.m., live on television on Rai1 and on radio on Radio3) in the version that the composer had prepared for La Scala in 1884. The opera, which has opened the season eight times since 1868, is conducted by musical director Riccardo Chailly on the podium of the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra. The cast is a veritable parade of stars. It stars Francesco Meli as Don Carlo, Anna Netrebko as Elizabeth of Valois, Michele Pertusi as Philip II, Elīna Garanča as Princess of Eboli, Luca Salsi as Marquis of Posa and Ain Anger as Grand Inquisitor. No less important protagonist is the choir of the Teatro alla Scala under the direction of Alberto Malazzi. The sets are by Daniel Bianco, the costumes by Franca Squarciapino, the lights by Pascal Mérat, the videos by Franc Aleu and the choreography by Nuria Castejón.
Why open with Don Carlo?
For Riccardo Chailly “Don Carlo” is the culmination of a reflection on power that spans three season openings, following Verdi’s “Macbeth” in 2021 and “Boris Godunov” in 2022. It stages the ruthless logic of those who wielded absolute power against the oppressed people and their pursuit of individual happiness.
It is a return to Verdi’s maturity after the three openings dedicated to the development of his early works: Joan of Arc in 2015, Attila in 2018 and Macbeth in 2021. In his new approach to Don Carlo, which he released in 2010 staged in Amsterdam In an installation by Willy Decker, the maestro traces the editions directed by Claudio Abbado in 1968 and 1977, whose rehearsals he followed, but also refers to the direct study of the manuscripts provided by Ricordi. As in Abbado’s edition, the introduction to the monologue of Philip II of Spain is, according to the score, entrusted to the entire group of cellists and not, as is often the case, just to the cello.
production
Thanks to this, the scenic arrangement is changed without interrupting the action in the different spaces provided for in the libretto Alternation of colossal scenographic elements. Verdi’s themes, freedom of emotions, the difficult relationship between fathers and children and the liberation of oppressed peoples, are set against the background of the conflict between secular and religious power. Don Carlo takes us behind the scenes of the power spectacle. To create an atmosphere between ecclesiastical and secular environments, director Lluís Pasqual and set designer Daniel Bianco used alabaster in the windows of religious but also civil buildings and, in particular, in the large window of the Collegiate Church of Santa María La Mayor in 2010, the Spanish city of Toro. These spaces are enlivened by the imagery of Franca Squarciapino’s costumes, which are reminiscent of, but brighten up, the clothing of the portrait painters of the time. The structure is documented but not philological: although placed in the historical context, the protagonists represent emotions and human qualities present at all times. The predominant color is blacknot as an expression of humiliation or sadness, but as an expression of power and wealth: In the 16th century, black velvets and brocades were among the most valuable fabrics.
The versions of the work
The premiere of Don Carlos took place at the Paris Opera in 1867. It is the third opera that Verdi wrote for France to Jérusalem and Les Vêpres Siciliennes (1855). The French libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle is based on Friedrich Schiller’s tragedy “Don Karlos, Infante of Spain”, which was performed in Hamburg in 1787. Commissioned for the Second World’s Fair in Paris, the opera consisted of five acts with ballet and proclaimed the values of personal and political freedom against the oppression of religious and governmental absolutism. The Italian premiere follows the Paris premiere by a few months with a libretto translated into Italian. And from 1868 we come to the language production of 1884 at the Teatro alla Scala. Here Verdi not only makes a number of cuts, but also fundamentally rethinks the structure and, to a certain extent, the nature of the work. A new drama emerges, more synthetic and agile, in which the political factor and the figure of Philip II outweigh the psychological/sentimental one. The revision expresses Verdi’s penchant for dramatic brevity: “The cuts,” he writes, “do not spoil the musical drama, on the contrary.” Shortening it makes it more lively“.