Teatro Manzoni, Bologna Daniel Oren — Wagner, Britten, Tchaikovsky
Bologna, Auditorium Manzoni — Main Hall
About the Event
An orchestra of great tradition, Sergiu Celibidache, ZoltánPeskó, Vladimir Delman, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti, and Michele Mariotti have taken turns at its helm as music directors. Among the conductors who have led the ensemble are Gary Bertini, Myung‐Whun Chung, James Conlon, Pinchas Steinberg, Valery Gergiev, Eliau Inbal, Vladimir Jurowskij, Daniel Oren, Peter Maag, Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Muti, Mstislav Rostropovič, Esa Pekka Salonen, Georg Solti, Christian Thielemann, Charles Dutoit, Georges Prêtre. The Teatro Comunale Orchestra is frequently invited abroad (Holland, Romania, Spain, France and Switzerland) and has participated in prestigious festivals (Amsterdam 1987, Parma 1990, Wiesbaden 1994, Santander 2004 and 2008, Aix en Provence 2005, Savonlinna 2006, Macau 2013, Muscat 2015, Guanajuato in Mexico 2017, Paris 2018). A privileged relationship with Japan has resulted in several tours, most recently in June 2019 in Osaka, Tokyo, Yokohama, Fukuoka, with Rigoletto and Il barbiere di Siviglia.
Richard Wagner
“Siegfried Idyll,” WW 103
“It will be difficult for me to find suitable words to express the feelings that your illustrious city has aroused.” So begin the five pages Wagner sent from Bayreuth on October 3, 1872, thanking the City of Bologna for its honorary citizenship. These obsequious words did not remain on paper. On December 4, 1876, Wagner and his wife Cosima Liszt arrived in the city, as they had promised. “In Bologna,” he confessed, “I found true friends, egregious people and a whole set of things that might have decided me to establish my domicile there, if it were not too late now. The idyll between Wagner and Bologna was sparked a couple of years after the other Idyll, that of Siegfried, first performed in the composer’s home, who with this piece wanted to celebrate the birthday of his wife Cosima, recently the mother of their son Siegfried.
Benjamin Britten
“Matinées Musicales, ” op. 24.
Paying affectionate homage to Rossini’s genius, in 1941 Benjamin Britten composed a brilliant Orchestral Suite, which begins precisely with motifs from the dances of the first act of William Tell. But the “Matinées Musicales,” designed for a performance by the American Ballet Company, is more and better than just an exercise in style. Already from the Nocturne, with the dreamy figuration of the celesta, one grasps all of Britten’s orchestral skill, which in “Solfeggi e gorgheggi” even manages to reproduce Rossini’s famous crescendos, evoking them in all their overwhelming rhythmic force.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36
His marriage to pupil Antonina Ivanovna Milukova, a self‐imposed cover to silence rumors of his homosexuality, forces Tchaikovsky into a reckoning. Taking note of the wreckage of that union, the composer wanders from town to town concluding the Fourth Symphony. A letter to Baroness and patron Nadezda von Meck provides a useful interpretation for understanding the Symphony: the work opens by evoking a nefarious force capable of destroying the composer’s hopes for happiness, an invincible force that prevents prosperity and peace. As it continues, the mood of sadness and despair becomes increasingly acute, eventually veering into a forcibly joyful atmosphere, in which Fate has abruptly awakened from dreams and fleeting visions of happiness. More than a Symphony, a mirror: “In these pages,” Tchaikovsky writes, “is the truthful echo of what I was feeling.
Practical Information
You must print out the order confirmation and show it at the box office to collect your regular ticket, starting one hour before the start of the concert, at the Teatro Manzoni, Via De' Monari 1/2.
Cast / Production
Orchestra del Teatro comunale di Bologna
Daniel Oren, conductor
Address
Auditorium Manzoni, Via de'Monari 1/2, Bologna, Italy — Google Maps
