It will undoubtedly be interesting to hear the new translation of the dialogues and the new rhythmic version of the sung parts of the famous operetta “La vedova allegra”, which is staged in Genoa. A dramaturgical work – as on the other side is that of Michieletto who makes cinematographic language dialogue and work in Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi”. While the winter edition of Umbria Jazz returns to Orvieto after the pandemic stop last year.
Genoa
On 30-31-1-2-5 at the Carlo Felice Theater the famous “Merry Widow”, by Franz Lehár. It will be interesting to listen to the new Italian translation by Luca Micheletti and the rhythmic version created in collaboration with Elisa Balbo. Micheletti also oversees the dramaturgical adaptation and direction; and plays the character of Danilo, protagonist of the operetta together with Elisa Balbo, in the title role. Micheletti comments: “Mine will therefore be a“ Merry Widow ”attentive to the profound spirit that moved its first creators. On the other hand, I believe a “philological” approach is adequate only up to a certain point, in the face of such a number of variants, endorsed by Lehár himself and from the beginning (in particular on spoken dialogues, which I have translated and adapted here freely crossing different dramaturgical solutions). On the traditional Italian version of the musical parts, then, many inaccuracies and inconsistencies had accumulated and layered over time. In the rhythmic version of the sung parts we keep some famous translations of numbers that have now entered the collective unconscious (from “silent the lip” to “it’s scabrous women studying …”), but we retranslate everything else from scratch, reconstructing the system in our language metric and rhythmic of the original, often restoring even the musical text corrupted over time by adapting forced words to it ”.
Gianni Schicchi and Rigoletto
On the 27th at 11.30 pm on Rai1 the film of the opera “Gianni Schicchi” by Puccini, directed by Damiano Michieletto; on the 30th at 21.20 on Rai3 another film by the same director, from the opera “Rigoletto”, by Verdi. Filmed in the province of Siena, between the municipalities of Trequanda and Pienza, “Gianni Schicchi” stars the baritone Roberto Frontali in the title role and Giancarlo Giannini who plays the new part of Buoso Donati, commissioned by Michieletto in the prologue. The orchestra is that of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, directed by Stefano Montanari. The second film, “Rigoletto at the Circus Maximus”, is based on Verdi’s opera of the same name, staged in July 2020 by the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma at the Circus Maximus, under the theatrical direction of Michieletto. It was the first live show after the months of closure. Michieletto had then had to deal with the limitations imposed by the anti-pandemic measures, first of all the distancing on the stage. From that pioneering show was born the film, which drew on the video material used on stage, where the action on stage dialogued with a large screen on which the shots of some steadycams present on stage were projected.
Orvieto
From 29 to 2 the 28th edition of Umbria Jazz Winter, fifty events starting in the late morning and ending late at night. Seventeen bands, over eighty musicians, from the Mancinelli Theater to the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, from the Emilio Greco Museum to the Palazzo dei Sette. We will listen among others to the guitars of Bill Frisell and Lionel Loueke, a hard bopper like George Cables, and then Giovanni Guidi, Francesco Bearzatti.
