The greatest voices of contemporary opera on stage for ‘La Gioconda’ by Amilcare Ponchielli, flagship title of the 2023/2024 Opera Season of the Teatro di San Carlo, from 7 to 17 April 2024, with a special performance next Sunday (5pm) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Anna Netrebko’s debut. With her, in the title role, Eve-Maud Hubeaux (Laura Adorno), Jonas Kaufmann (Enzo Grimaldo), Ludovic Tézier (Barnaba), on the podium Pinchas Steinberg, directed by Romain Gilbert. In the second cast Lianna Haroutounian, Anna Maria Chiuri, Angelo Villari, Ernesto Petti (11, 14 and 17 April). The sets are by Etienne Pluss, the costumes by Christian Lacroix (director of the tailoring is Daniela Ciancio), choreography by Vincent Chaillet, the lights by Valerio Tiberi. Co-production with the Gran Teatre del Liceu of Barcelona, ’La Gioconda’ had been missing from the program since 1977. All the artistic teams were involved: Orchestra, Choir (prepared by Fabrizio Cassi), Ballet (conducted by Clotilde Vayer) and Children’s Choir (conducted by Stefania Rinaldi). Opera in four acts by Ponchielli, with a libretto by Tobia Gorrio (Arrigo Boito), La Gioconda is taken from the drama Angélo, tyran de Padoue by Victor Hugo and was composed between 1874 and 1876. Playing the title role in Naples are were artists such as Fedora Barbieri (1953), Renata Tebaldi (1967), Grace Bumbry (1977). With this melodrama, considered his masterpiece, Ponchielli managed to combine French grand opera with echoes of Verdi, in a scenic context animated by passions with strong accents, which prefigure the most heated realism. La Gioconda, known to the general public for ‘The Dance of the Hours’, is set in 17th century Venice. “I wanted the stage setting to be in Venice – says Romain Gilbert, presenting the new production with superintendent Lissner – because there are some works that you cannot take elsewhere, and La Gioconda is one of these. In this story the link with the setting is very strong, just as, for example, Tosca is necessarily linked to Rome. In La Gioconda there is the Doge, the Lion’s Mouth, the canals… All these things are written for Venice. I didn’t want, however, to reproduce the Postcard Venice, which we know today thanks to the Carnival and its colours. I wanted to reproduce the Venice of the 17th century, the real Venice of that time.”
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