A traditional Attila at the Verdi Festival in Parma

By James Imam, 03 October 2018

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“Andrea De Rosa's soulless production as a whole is quite unimaginative”

Reviewed at Teatro Regio di Parma, Parma on 30 September 2018

Verdi, Attila

Teatro Regio di Parma

Gianluigi Gelmetti, Conductor

Andrea de Rosa, Director

Aurelio Colombo, Set Designer

Alessandro Lai, Costume Designer

Riccardo Zanellato, Attila

María José Siri, Odabella

Vladimir Stoyanov, Ezio

Francesco Demuro, Foresto

Paolo Battaglia, Leone

Saverio Fiore, Uldino

Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma

Orchestra dell'Emilia Romagna Arturo Toscanini

Lamb to the slaughter(house): rare outing for 1857 Simon Boccanegra

Mark Pullinger, 25th September

Boccanegra butchered in Parma? Only in the sense that director Valentina Carrasca sets the opera in an abattoir...

****1

Turbo-charged Trovatore: Verdi at full throttle in Fidenza

Mark Pullinger, 24th September

All you need to stage Trovatore, according to Enrico Caruso, are “the four greatest singers in the world”. The Verdi Festival may have found the four loudest...

***11

Storm clouds gather over Verdi Festival opener

Mark Pullinger, 22nd September

Audience protests against Roberto Abbado interrupt the opening night of the festival, Yannis Kokkos' staging of La forza del destino.

***11

Wilson's lunar Trouvère the antithesis of grand opéra

Renato Verga, 29th September

When they asked Wilson to stage an opera by Verdi, the Texan director replied "I'll never do it!". Now he is at his fourth Verdi's production.

***11

A melancholy Falstaff at the Verdi Festival in Parma

Renato Verga, 1st October

Not a particularly revealing Falstaff, but a pleasing performance though. Maybe one would have expected something of greater impact from a festival like this one, but that goal had already accomplished by Graham Vick with his Stiffelio the night before...

***11

Nothing short of a coup: Stiffelio at the Verdi Festival, Parma

James Imam, 30th September

Without recourse to virtual reality or hallucinogens, Vick has created a suggestive, vividly surreal world where one's reference points are lost to the wind.

*****

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James Imam

James Imam is an arts journalist writing for publications including The Financial Times, The Times, Musical America and Opera magazine. He grew up in Manchester, read anthropology at Cambridge and has since lived in Milan. As a once-aspiring countertenor he has an abiding interest in Baroque music.