EVENT NAME: Opera I Due Foscari

EVENT PLACE: Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino - Sala Zubin Mehta

EVENT DATE: from May 22 to June 3 2022

EVENT DESCRIPTION:

Sixth title of the Verdi catalog produced during the 'years in prison', I due Foscari, an opera in three acts to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, made its debut at the Teatro Argentina in Rome on November 3, 1844. The première, as Verdi himself reported, was revealed "a half fiasco", due in part to an unprepared vocal cast and in part to the limitations of the chosen subject. Yet at first Verdi was enthusiastic about that "beautiful drama, beautiful, very archbellious" - as he described it to Piave - whose subject was inspired by the homonymous play by Lord Byron, only to realize in the composition phase that it was missing totally action, resulting monotonous and repetitive. The drama is in fact built entirely on the contrast between paternal love and love of country of Doge Francesco Foscari and on the pains of his son Jacopo, unjustly accused of murder and of having plotted against the Republic of Venice.

In the course of the work, nothing more happens than what was already expressed at the beginning and also Piave's additions such as the apparition of the ghost of Carmagnola, or the mother scene of Lucrezia who bursts with her children in tow before the Council of Ten to defending her husband, in reality they are unable to move a plot devoid of narrative elements capable of keeping the theatrical action alive. But while lacking the liveliness of action and the backbone of previous Verdi plays, I due Foscari stands out for some new and experimental compositional solutions.

The orchestration, for example, becomes more subtle and accurate, with a prominent place reserved for the harp and the woods that return an elegiac and nocturnal instrumental hue perfectly adhering to the image of Venice described by Byron, the endings of act end without the traditional squeeze and the reminiscent motifs appear in a systematic way; in fact, each character is associated with a musical motif that reappears, like a business card, every time the protagonists return to the scene.

New staging

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