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Season 2014/2015
Opera Ballet
Dido and Æneas / Le Jeune Homme et la Mort
Program
Dido and Æneas
Opera in three acts
Libretto by Nahum Tate from the IV book of Virgil's Aeneid
Narrative texts from Epistulae Heroidum of Publio Ovidio Naso
Musica by Henry Purcell
Edition by Clifford Bartlett
Editor: King’s Music, Huntingdon (Cambridgeshire)
Production of Fondazione Arena di Verona 2013
Sung in English. Surtitles in English and Italian.
Interval
Le jeune homme et la mort
Ballet by Roland Petit
Staging of Luigi Bonino
Subject by Jean Cocteau
Music by Johann Sebastian Bach
Interpreters: Alessandra Ferri and Yonah Acosta (1, 3, 5) / Denys Cherevychko (8, 10)
Scenes: Georges Wakhévitch
Costumes: Barbara Karisnka
Light design: Jean-Michel Désiré
Artists
Conductor
Stefano Montanari
Orchestra and Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Stefano Montanari
Orchestra and Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
DIDO AND AENEAS
Direction
Marina Bianchi
Scenes and costumes
Leila Fteita
Choreography
Maria Grazia Garofoli
Choir director
Lorenzo Fratini
Maggiodanza
LE JEUNE HOMME ET LA MORT
Le jeune homme
Yonah Acosta (1, 3, 5) /
Denys Cherevychko (8, 10)
La Mort
Alessandra Ferri
Organ
Andea Severi
DIDO AND AENEAS
Dido, Queen of Carthage
Josè Maria Lo Monaco
Belinda, Dido's sister
Francesca Aspromonte
Second Woman, handmaid
Irene Favro
Æneas, Trojan prince
Leonardo Cortellazzi / Giuseppe Valentino Buzza (03, 10)
Sorceress
Adriana Di Paola / Candida Guida (03, 10)
First Enchantress
Alessia Nadin
Second Enchantress
Anna Pennisi
Spirit, in form of Mercury
Teona Dvali
Sailor
Paolo Antognetti
Voce recitante
Ermelinda Pansini
LE JEUNE HOMME ET LA MORT
"In a study, a young man is alone, waiting. Enter the girl who was the cause of his unhappiness. He rushes towards her. She rejects him. He pleads. She insults him, mocks him and runs away. He hangs himself. The room fades. It remains the only body hanging. Through the roofs death comes as a dancer. She takes off the mask: death is the girl. Then, puts the mask on the face of his victim. Together, they move away across the rooftops". Jean Cocteau
DIDO AND AENEAS
ACT I
In his palace in Carthage, Queen Dido is upset. Her sister Belinda guesses the cause in a growing passion for Aeneas, the prince hosted at court after the destruction of Troy. The man, now in the presence of the queen, declares his feelings; the last resistance of Dido are won, while the choir hymns to Love and Beauty.
ACT II
The sorceress, in her cave, meditate a plan to destroy Carthage: a thunderstorm force the two lovers, now engaged in a hunt, to return to the palace while an elf, under the guise of Mercury, invites Aeneas to leave Dido. When in the woods they feel the first thunder, all make their way to the palace. Aeneas is instead blocked by the false Mercury that intimate, on the order of Jupiter, to leave Carthage and resume his journey. Reluctantly, he decides to leave the same night.
ACT III
Satisfied with the imminent departure of the Trojans, the sorceress promises to continue to haunt them in the sea, sparking a storm. Aeneas, who would like to disobey what he believes to be a divine order, is driven out by Dido. The queen can not tolerate that fact that, even if only for a moment, he thought to leave her. After Aeneas' departure, she dies in the arms of Belinda. On her tomb appear then Cupids, invited the choir to spread roses, and to guard the soul of Dido.
ALESSANDRA FERRI
Born in Milan, after training at La Scala and in London in 1980 she joined the Royal English Ballet. Three years later, at only nineteen years of age, she became principal ballerina receiving the Lawrence Oliver Award and was nominated dancer of the year by the New York Times. In 1985, called by Mikhail Baryshnikov, she moved to the American Ballet Theatre and in 1987 she starred in the film GiseHlle by Herb Ross. She is the first Italian ever to be invited as étoile to the Paris Opera and the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg and in 1992 she was proclaimed the prima ballerina assoluta.
Yonah Acosta
After his initial formation in the National Ballet of Cuba, he joined the English national Ballet in 2011 as First Artist, promoted Junior Soloist Summer 2011 and Principal in 2014. Roles include Eagling’s Men Y Men and Ashton’s pas de quatre in Deane’s Swan Lake. The Young Man in Roland Petit’s Le Jeune Homme et la Mort and made his debut as the Nephew/Prince in Eagling’s production of The Nutcracker at the London Coliseum, Christmas 2011. Autumn 2012 danced Bluebird and Prince Désiré in MacMillan’s The Sleeping Beauty. July 2013 appeared opposite Tamara Rojo in Nureyev’s Raymonda Act III and Autumn 2013 danced the leading roles of Conrad, Ali and Birbanto in Le Corsaire. July 2014 made his debut as Franz in Ronald Hynd’s Coppélia
Denys Cherevitchko
Denys Cherevychko was born in Donetsk (Ukraine). He was educated at the Ballet Academy of Vadim Pisarev in his home town as well as at the Heinz-Bosl-Foundation/Ballet Academy in Munich. In 2006 he joined the Ballett der Wiener Staatsoper und Volksoper, in 2008 he was appointed Demi-soloist, in 2009 Soloist and in 2012 First Soloist of the Wiener Staatsballett. He has appeared as guest dancer in many European Countries and overseas.
HENRY PURCELL
He was born probably in London September 10, 1659 and is introduced to music by his father, a master of the choir of Westminster Abbey and his uncle, court lutenist. The first composition attributable to him with certainty, an ode 1670 for the King's birthday, already testifies the fruitful relationship with the celebrations of the English court which led him to write, among other things, the famous Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary (1695). The activity for the theater instead starts in 1680 with the music for the drama Theodosius and reaches full maturity in the masterpieces Dido and Æneas (1689) King Arthur (1691), The Fairy Queen (1692) and The Tempest (1695). Since 1679 he is also organist of Westminster Abbey and the Royal Chapel from 1682. He died in London November 21, 1695.
STEFANO MONTANARI
Graduated in violin and piano with honors, from 1995 to 2012 he was concertmaster and director of the Accademia Bizantina of Ravenna, an ensemble specializing in early music. Professor of baroque violin at the Accademia Internazionale della Musica in Milan and the "Dall'Abaco" Conservatory of Verona, Stefano Montanari, is also a regular guest conductor of the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo, La Fenice in Venice, the Society of Lyon, Opera Atelier in Toronto and the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.
MARINA BIANCHI
After graduating in Stage Direction at the School of Dramatic Art "Paolo Grassi" in Milan, from 1980 to 1992 she was the assistant director at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan; she works with Liliana Cavani, Eimuntas Nekrošius, Ferzan Ozpetek, Graham Vick, William Friedkin, Luca Ronconi, Roberto De Simone, Giorgio Gallione, Antonio Albanese and is responsible for the reprises of all the productions of Giorgio Strehler. Among the shows that she directed are the Italian premiere ofDas Berliner Requiem by Kurt Weill for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 1996, La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini inaugurating the 2000 season of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto for the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari in the courtyard of Palazzo Svevo in 2001, L'elisir d'amore by Gaetano Donizetti at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 2010, Le nozze di Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 2011-12 season at the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari, Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell at the Teatro Ristori for the winter season 2013 of the Arena di Verona.