Will Crutchfield conducting Guillaume Tell, photo © Gabe Palacio
Dear Bel Canto Fans,
Welcome back to the adventure of Bel Canto for the 21st century! Teatro Nuovo - battered but unbowed by the pandemic that has made opera so chaotic these past few years - is back into full action in 2023.
Two of my long-held wishes are being fulfilled this year. One is a production of Poliuto, one of Donizetti’s most inspired music-dramas (and our first title by that fundamental composer). The other is a first venture into a truly neglected repertory, the lively world of Italian comic opera after Donizetti. This is Crispino e la Comare by the Ricci brothers, a gem of dark comedy that held the stage well into the 20th century.
We’re also excited about delving further into the mission that has proved so successful. By re-creating the physical setup, the instrumental sonority, the leadership styles, and the musical practices of the Bel Canto era, we are unlocking new expressive impulses in ourselves and new delights for the audience.
This year that mission explores a new phase. All our previous operas were composed between 1812 and 1829. This year’s were written in 1838 and 1850. That makes two differences for us: the orchestra will have some slightly different instruments, and the leadership models in Italy were beginning their shift to “single direction.”
As always, we take as our starting point the actual arrangements used when the operas were new. Luigi Ricci was a pioneer of keyboard-led direction, and meanwhile Poliuto, if the censors hadn’t blocked it at the last minute, would have been led by the violinist-director Giuseppe Maria Festa in Naples. So this year we welcome back Jonathan Brandani, co-director of our first season’s Medea in Corinto and now the Artistic Director of Opera Calgary, to lead the Riccis’ opera, and Jakob Lehmann, renewing his contract as TN’s Associate Artistic Director, to lead Poliuto.
We are also thrilled to be welcoming back Santiago Ballerini, Teresa Castillo, and Hans Tashjian, and to present the Teatro Nuovo debuts of a whole group of exciting young singers poised to carry a renewed Bel Canto tradition into its next phase. Bel Canto in its day was creative, free-wheeling, loose, open-ended, unpredictable. We want to make it that way again, and we invite you along for the ride!
Arrivederci,
