Francesca Zambello on WNO’s New Production of Verdi’s Forza
Hear from Washington National Opera’s new Artistic Director Francesca Zambello about how she is approaching WNO’s new production of Verdi’s classic La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny). Zambello will speak about why she chose this particular opera to celebrate the Verdi bicentenary and what audiences can expect from her bold new production. Singers from the production will preview the opera in a musical program featuring some of Verdi’s most beautiful melodies.
Admission is free, but reservations are required.
Official WNO The Force of Destiny page: CLICK HERE
ON STAGE: October 12-26, 2013
in collaboration with
DOORS OPEN AT 6:15 AND CLOSE AT 7:00PM PROMPTLY
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Please click on “Make a Reservation” by September 20, 2013 at 2 PM
The Reservation System will allow you to register until we reach
capacity or by the event’s date and time above (whichever comes
first.)
PLEASE NOTE: RESERVATION IS REQUIRED FOR OUR EVENTS FOR SECURITY REASONS. A RESERVATION IS NOT A GUARANTEE OF A SEAT. OUR VENUE HAS LIMITED SEATING AND WE WILL ACCOMODATE GUESTS ON A FIRST-COME FIRST-SERVED BASIS. GUESTS WITHOUT SEATS ARE WELCOME TO STAND IF THEY LIKE.
PHOTO ID REQUIRED
LOCATION
Embassy of Italy
3000 Whitehaven Street NW
Washington, DC 20008
MORE INFO
PLOT SUMMARY OF LA FORZA DEL DESTINO
Thrust together by the hand of fate, three lives become irreversibly intertwined on a path to ruin. Leonora, the daughter of a Spanish marquis, is ready to leave her homeland behind to run away with Alvaro, an Incan nobleman. When her father is accidentally killed by Alvaro’s gun, the couple is tragically separated – and her brother Carlo vows revenge at any cost.
Distraught, Leonora commits to a life of solitude near a monastery. Meanwhile, Alvaro and Carlo both enlist in the army and become friends, unaware of the other’s true identity. An innocent promise ultimately leads Carlo to face down his comrade, and Leonora to emerge from hiding to save her long-lost love.
From its famed overture to its riveting final moments, Verdi’s notoriously demanding masterpiece – not seen by WNO audiences in nearly 25 years – bursts with thrilling arias and rousing ensemble passages. WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello brings her inventive staging to this new production celebrating the bicentenary of Verdi’s birth. Combined with an exciting cast of international singers conducted by gifted Chinese American maestro Xian Zhang, this is one opera Washington will be talking about for years to come.
ABOUT LA FORZA DEL DESTINO
La forza del destino, the 22nd of Verdi’s operas, was completed in 1862 and introduced in St. Petersburg; the overture, however, was not heard until February 1869, when the opera was presented at La Scala in Milan in revised form.
Verdi composed only two operas for introduction outside Western Europe: Aida, for the opening of a new opera house in Cairo in 1871, and La forza del destino, which the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg commissioned ten years earlier. The backgrounds of these two works have two other details in common: for each of them the originally scheduled premiere had to be postponed, and for each of them Verdi at first provided a brief orchestral prelude which he subsequently expanded into a full-fledged overture—the type of piece designated sinfonia in Italian opera scores—for its first presentation at La Scala some years later. The composer recognized his expanded overture to Aida as a bad idea when he heard it in rehearsal in 1872, and he scrapped it in favor of the original prelude. The new overture he composed three years earlier for the Milan premiere of La forza del destino, however (following performances in Rome, New York and London with the original prelude), was something he was proud of, and he confidently made it a permanent part of the score.
In some of its early productions, this opera was presented under the title Don Alvaro. The libretto, written by Verdi’s frequent collaborator Francesco Maria Piave, was based on the Spanish play Don Alvaro, ó La fuerza del sino, written in 1835 by Angel Pedro de Saavedra Ramírez de Banquedano, the Duke of Rivas, with an additional scene borrowed from Friedrich Schiller’s earlier drama Wallenstein’s Camp. The overture, generally regarded as the finest of all Verdi’s symphonic introductions, is not an encapsulation of the drama, but rather a powerful evocation of its atmosphere, incorporating the “Fate” motif which plays so big a part at the end of Act I and themes from later in the work (Alvaro’s aria in Act IV, Leonora’s prayer in Act II, her duet with Padre Guardiano).
ABOUT FRANCESCA ZAMBELLO
Francesca Zambello is the Artistic Director of Washington National Opera. Previously she has served as its Artistic Advisor. She has directed many WNO productions, including Of Mice and Men (debut in 2001), Fidelio (2003), Die Walküre (2003 and 2007), Billy Budd (2004), Porgy and Bess (2005 and 2010), Das Rheingold (2006), Siegfried (2009), Salome (2010), and Show Boat (2013). Since September 2010 she has also been the Artistic and General Director of The Glimmerglass Festival in upstate New York.
An internationally recognized director of opera and theater, Zambello’s work has been seen at the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, the Bolshoi, Royal Opera House, Munich State Opera, Paris Opera, New York City Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and English National Opera. She has staged plays and musicals on Broadway, at the Royal National Theatre, BAM, the Guthrie Theater, Vienna’s Raimund Theater, the Bregenz Festival, Sydney Festival, Disneyland, Berlin’s Theater des Westens, and at the Kennedy Center.
She began her career as the Artistic Director of the Skylight Opera Theatre and as an assistant director to the late Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. She has been a guest lecturer at Harvard, Juilliard, and Yale. An American who grew up in Europe, she speaks French, Italian, German, and Russian. She is a graduate of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.
She most recently developed and directed the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’ Heart of a Soldier for San Francisco Opera, where she served as Artistic Advisor from 2006-2011. Her acclaimed production of Show Boat opened at Lyric Opera of Chicago in February 2012. Other recent directing highlights include a new production of La traviata for Opera on Sydney Harbor in March 2012 and a new production of Aida at The Glimmerglass Festival in July 2012.
She has been awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government for her contribution to French culture, and the Russian Federation’s medal for Service to Culture. Her theatrical honors include three Olivier Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, two French Grand Prix des Critiques, Helpmann Award, Green Room Award, Palme d’Or in Germany, and the Golden Mask in Russia.
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