On Sunday 12 February at 20, in the Sala Grande, the maestro Zubin Mehta returns to the podium of the Maggio for “La traviata”, by Giuseppe Verdi, directed by Davide Livermore.

Aida Garifullina as Violetta; Francesco Meli as Alfredo Germont; Plácido Domingo as Giorgio Germont; Joseph Dahdah as Gaston and Ana Victória Pitts as Flora.

Florence, 10 February 2023 – The Maggio Carnival Festival continues its programming: Sunday, February 12, at 8 pm, a short distance from the premiere of Doktor Faust (again directed by Livermore) staged on Tuesday 7 February, in the Sala Grande another important première is staged: La traviata, one of the most famous and performed works in the world, a masterpiece by Giuseppe Verdi, which returns to Maggio just over a year after the September 2021 shows. On the podium, at the helm of the Maggio Choir and Orchestra, maestro Zubin Mehta, on his first appointment at the Carnival Festival; directed by Davide Livermore, reprized on this occasion by Stefania Grazioli: it is precisely the extremely successful staging of September 2021 that (re)brings Violetta, Alfredo, Flora, Giorgio Germont and the rest of the cast to Paris of the youth riots of 1968.

The singing company is formed by Aida Garifullina in the role of the protagonist, Violetta; Francesco Meli, who returns to Maggio after the performances of Don Carlo in December, instead takes up the role of Alfredo; the great Plácido Domingo, also among the protagonists of the September 2021 production, returns in the role of Alfredo’s father, Giorgio Germont (a role that will be played by George Petean in the performance of 22 February); Joseph Dahdah, who is currently performing Doctor Faustus, is Gaston, Viscount of Letorières; Ana Victória Pitts instead plays Flora, Violetta’s friend; Caterina Meldolesi plays Annina, the maid of the protagonist while the role of the Baron of Douphol, the protector of Violetta, is taken up by Francesco Samuele Venuti. The roles of The Marquis d’Obigny and Doctor Grenvil are played by two talents from the Academy, Matteo Mancini and Volodomyr Morozov; the cast is completed by three Artists of the Coro del Maggio: Davide Ciarrocchi in the role of Giuseppe, a servant of Violetta; Lisandro Guinis as a commission agent and Egidio Massimo Naccarato as Flora’s servant.

The technical ensemble is the same as the 2021 production: the sets are curated by Giò Forma, the costumes by Mariana Fracasso while the lighting and video departments are by Antonio Castro (shot on this occasion by Andrea Locorotondo) and D-wok respectively .
The choir master of the Maggio is Lorenzo Fratini.

Three other performances are scheduled: on 15, 17 and 22 February, again at 20. Tickets are running out rapidly.

Thanks to the CR Firenze Foundation, the performance on 22/02/2023 is offered to the public with a 50% discount on tickets in each sector.

Thanks to Intesa Sanpaolo for the support

The recording of the 2021 show is always available for purchase or rental on the Its Art platform.

Before each performance, the presentations to the public of the shows held by Katiuscia Manetta, Maddalena Bonechi and Marco Cosci continue: the guides are held in the Foyer of the Sala Zubin Mehta and in the Gallery Foyer of the Sala Grande approximately 45 minutes before the start of the show. Friday 10 February at 5.30 pm, in the Foyer of the Sala Mehta, for the cycle “First the words, then the music”, the musicologist Paolo Gallarati presents the work to the public.

So, after just over a year, one of Verdi’s greatest masterpieces and of world music in general returns to the Florentine scene: La traviata, which for years has remained among the most internationally represented operatic titles in the seasons theater lyrics. The opera – with a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave – is part of the so-called “Popular Trilogy” by the genius from Busseto, together with two other masterpieces such as Rigoletto (staged in May in October 2021 precisely under the direction of Davide Livermore, for the conducted by Riccardo Frizza) and Il Trovatore (opening title of the just concluded Autumn Festival conducted by maestro Zubin Mehta and directed by Cesare Lievi). Based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas (son) La Dame aux camélias, it debuted in March 1853 at the Teatro La Fenice without reaching the success hoped for by Verdi, also due to the themes it dealt with which in mid-19th century society were still considered rough and hot. Furthermore, the work underwent heavy revisions, real plot twists, by the censors: when it premiered in Florence in September 1854, even the title was revised, transformed from La traviata into a more moderate Violetta.

Verdi himself, speaking in a letter sent to his friend Vincenzo Luccardi, had this to say “They made the pure and innocent ‘Traviata’. Thank you very much! Thus they spoiled all the positions, all the characters! If the sun shone in the night there would be no more night. In short: they do not understand anything.”

It was therefore crystal clear that in Italy, with La traviata, Verdi had tackled an almost forbidden theme, provoking a real scandal and speaking almost for the first time (mostly setting his work in a contemporary period) about prostitution, touching some real sore points for the bigoted nineteenth-century Italian society.

Finally, director emeritus for life Zubin Mehta is back on ‘his’ podium, one of the most authoritative interpreters in the world of La traviata and Verdi’s repertoire in general: the maestro made his debut in Florence in 1964 with this very work , facing it again in 2000, in 2001 on tour in Tokyo with the Maggio and in 2015. Countless other times in which Mehta has conducted the work during his prestigious career, collecting a total of over 70 overall performances: between this is the famous live television staging of June 2000, broadcast in 125 countries under the direction of Giuseppe Patroni Griffi in the places, times and movements in which the plot takes place.

In Maggio, since 1929, Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece has been put on the bill 32 times for more than 180 performances, of which the last, naturally, in September 2021, welcomed with great enthusiasm by both the public and the critics, who on several occasions he has defined Zubin Mehta’s direction of the opera as perhaps the most beautiful and intense among those conducted in his career (and on the Florentine stage) by the maestro.

The direction, resumed by Stefania Grazioli, is by Davide Livermore, received equally warmly by the public and the press, who praised the attention to detail and the intriguing reading of the work. Speaking of what are the most characteristic features of Verdi’s narration and why Paris in 1968 was chosen as the setting, Livermore underlined how much the revolutionary spirit of love is the fulcrum of the work and of the redemption that Violetta faces in the development of the plot: “Not to provoke – says Livermore – but to tell this story more closely, to develop the richness and modernity of Verdi’s masterpiece and also the scandal it created in the society of the time, in 1853. This in total respect, word for word, note by note, of the libretto and the score. Even the love between Violetta and Alfredo is equally strong and revolutionary” continues the director “it is that of a young and beautiful prostitute, Violetta, who thanks to it embarks on a real path of personal redemption”.

Speaking of what concerns the staging of the show, Livermore also highlighted how important it is to keep in mind the concept, indeed the axiom, that a work and art in general are just that; art, and not historical documentaries: “As far as the acting is concerned, I tried to give the show a very cinematic cut: we wanted to respect every narrative node of the work; the hotel corridor that we see in the first act is a sort of ‘limbo’, where we see the passage of souls who in part contributed to the life or death of Violetta herself. Equally important is, visually, to notice how the appearance of this hotel decays as the narrative of the show continues; as if the slow wear and tear of the scenography moved hand in hand with Violetta’s illness, which will then lead to her death, finally surrounded by an environment that from an ancient splendor has therefore been transformed into a degraded and almost adverse place “.

In the role of Violetta, the protagonist of the opera, Aida Garifullina, making her debut on the stage of the Maggio in a role that the soprano has already faced several times during her career; at his side Francesco Meli who returns to take on the role of Alfredo, after the great success achieved in the performances in September 2021: “Alfredo, in this particular production, is a young man from 1968 Paris, who wants to live his life recklessly but , in front, we find a figure like Violetta who is equally ‘reckless and free’: both are partly victims of their years and of the hypocrisy that permeated that particular historical segment, highlighted by the profound contrast found between the youth movements and the adult and old class. In an absolutely similar way to the concept underlying Traviata, they are both marked by a destiny that is already written.” For Francesco Meli it is the third Verdi title in a few months in Maggio, after the successes obtained with Ernani and Don Carlo, a work that concluded the Autumn Festival; and again in March he was the protagonist in the role of Don Josè in Carmen, again conducted by maestro Mehta, the last opera stage of the Carnival Festival.

In the role of Alfredo’s father, Giorgio Germont, one of the legends of the international scene: Plácido Domingo, who, like Francesco Meli, also returns to reprise the same role in September 2021. Domingo, one of the most important and beloved performers of the last half century and beyond, returns to Maggio after the acclaimed performances of I due Foscari, staged during the 84th Maggio Musicale Festival.

In the performance of 22 February the role of Germont father is instead supported by George Petean, returning to the stage in Maggio after Siberia by Umberto Giordano, staged in July 2021 under the direction of Gianandrea Noseda and directed by Roberto Andò.
Joseph Dahdah, recently trained at the Accademia del Maggio and now ‘at home’ in the Theater’s productions, plays Gastone, Viscount of Letorières, while he is always busy, these days, in the double role of Der Herzog von Parma/Soldat in the Doktor Faust by Ferruccio Busoni.

Another former talent of the Maggio’s Academy, Ana Victória Pitts, plays Flora, Violetta’s friend, a character she has played several times throughout her career and also here in Maggio, including the September 2018 edition under the direction of Fabio Luisi directed by Francesco Micheli. Two other former artists of the Academy, and true ‘experts’ of opera having faced it several times in their careers, respectively interpret Annina, Violetta’s maid and the Baron of Duphol, her protector: Caterina Meldolesi and Francesco Samuele Venuti.

Also from the Academy are Matteo Mancini and Volodomyr Morozov, who play the role of The Marquis d’Obigny and Doctor Grenvil; the cast is completed by three Artists of the Coro del Maggio: Davide Ciarrocchi in the role of Giuseppe, a servant of Violetta; Lisandro Guinis as a commission agent and Egidio Massimo Naccarato as Flora’s servant.