SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Donizetti rarity launches Liverpool's Capital of Culture Year : Emilia di Liverpool at St. George's Hall from New Year's Eve (BK)


Few UK cities can claim to be the setting for a work by a major operatic composer. Donizetti’s choice of Liverpool for his virtuosic bel canto work reflects his romantic imagination since the stage directions refer to rustic scenery of deep forests, mountain glens and dizzy precipices. The city did, however, possess an exotic reputation once and by the end of the nineteenth century, the influx of Italian craftsmen to Liverpool created a thriving Italian quarter which is now being rediscovered and acknowledged as part of the City’s cultural landscape.

Donizetti’s  rarity Emilia di Liverpool will be staged by the European Opera Centre in the magnificently restored Concert Room of St. George’s Hall, Liverpool from 31 December 2007 to 5 January 2008.

This opera, rediscovered by Fritz Spiegl, was presented in 1957 for the 750th anniversary of Liverpool’s charter and Joan Sutherland sang the title role for the subsequent BBC relay. It will be performed in the round in a production directed by the young Spanish director Ignacio Garcia and is conducted by Italian Giovanni Pacor, of Arena di Verona. The designer is Elisabetta Pian and the lighting designer is José Luis Canales. Talented young singers have been selected from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Romania and Spain and the production will have an orchestra of young musicians from Liverpool’s associate cities – Bremen, Gdansk and from Liverpool itself. The production will tour to Gdansk (19 and 20 January) to Bremen (24, 25 and 26 January) and to Naples later in the year..

For these performances, which open Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture, the European Opera Centre has commissioned a new edition of the opera from the French musicologist, Gilles Rico, who has worked from all the available manuscripts in Bergamo, Naples and Paris.

Performances take place in the Concert Room, St. George’s Hall, William Brown Street, Liverpool beginning on New Year's Eve,  31 December at 7pm tickets: £55, £75 (with complimentary champagne)

Further  performances are as follows. 1 January 3pm tickets: £8, £12 2,3,4,5 January 7pm tickets: £25, £35

Robert Farr will review the New Year's Eve performance for Seen and Heard.

Bill Kenny

Box Office: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic 0151 709 3789

Footnote:

European Opera Centre. Launched in 1997, with leadership from major opera houses in Europe, the European Opera Centre, based in Liverpool, provides practical training for singers and other young Europeans intending to develop a career in opera. The Centre's work has received strong political and financial support from the European Union. Established within the Liverpool Hope University Everton Campus, intensive rehearsal periods lead to staged productions, concert performances, recordings and other projects. Since its launch in 1997, the Centre has attracted trainees from 33 European countries many of whom have gone on to take leading roles in major opera houses. www.operaeurope.org