Students measure themselves with Rossini
From September 4, the Accademia Project returns to the stage of the Teatro alla Scala: Il barbiere di Siviglia, performed by the students of the Accademia, will be on stage until September 18.
Conducting the young La Scala students will be Evelino Pidò, while the performance is directed by Leo Muscato, who has returned to take over the production with the students, the sets by Federica Parolini and the costumes by Silvia Aymonino. Muscato, who brought a new success to La Scala in 2023 with Li zite ‘ngalera by Vinci and who in the summer directed a new Nabucco at Herod Atticus in Athens, shifts the action between the wings of a theatre of which Bartolo is the despotic impresario: the music permeates the action and animates all the characters, who are conductors, instrumentalists, dancers and dancers.
For the performance, as for the subsequent Swan Lake and The Marriage of Figaro, very few seats remain available.
In the pit, the students of the Advanced course for Orchestra Musicians started last October, who in the coming months will be back at La Scala in various productions: from September 15 in Swan Lake directed by Koen Kessels, then, on October 15, with the Singing Soloists in the double appointment with the Milan-Monza-Brianza Chamber of Commerce's Enterprise and Work Award and the traditional Institutional Concert. From October 27, the ‘Great Operas for Children’ also return with Pierangelo Valtinoni's The Little Prince and, from February 11, 2024, with Benjamin Britten's The little sweeper.
Two casts alternate on stage.
In the role of Figaro we find the Scotsman Paul Grant, who after attending the Accademia in 2020/21 made his debut at La Scala in La Cenerentola for children, followed by Roméo et Juliette, Salome and The tempest, an opera by Thomas Adès, and participation in the production of Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House in Muscat with the students of the Accademia Teatro alla Scala conducted by Sesto Quatrini. He will be joined by Sung-Hwan Damien Park, who has joined the Accademia for the two-year period 2021/2023 and has already been heard at the Piermarini in Ariadne auf Naxos, The Secret Marriage (Accademia project 2022), The Little Prince, Salome and Andrea Chenier, while at the Donizetti Opera Festival he took part in Donizetti's Chiara and Serafina.
In the part of Rosina alternate Mara Gaudenzi, a student from 2021 to 2013 and already heard at La Scala in La Cenerentola for children, Rigoletto, Il matrimonio segreto and Il piccolo principe, as well as in Bergamo in Donizetti's Chiara e Serafina and in Turin, Rovigo, Ravenna and Novara as Rosina, and Chiara Tirotta, who, after her passage to the Accademia, took part in La Cenerentola, La cena delle beffe, L'Enfant et les sortilèges , La traviata, productions at La Scala, while more recent engagements include Mozart, Bellini and Rossini parts - including Dorabella and Rosina - in Genoa, Dubai, Trieste, Naples, Verona, Pesaro and Parma.
Marco Filippo Romano, an artist already in a full career, had played Bartolo in 2021 with Chailly and returns to the Piermarini with the Scala students before performing the same part at the Vienna State Opera, the Semper Oper in Dresden and the Regio in Parma. He is joined by 23-year-old Pierpaolo Martella, winner of AsLiCo's ‘Emerging Voices’ prize in 2020 and heard in several productions at the Sociale di Como and the Scuola dell'Opera Italiana.
The Conte d'Almaviva has the voice of Chuan Wang, who after studies in Guangzhou (China) and at the Milan Conservatory was admitted - in 2017 - to the Accademia singing in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Cenerentola andElisir for children, in Cherubini's Alì Babà , Gianni Schicchi, Khovanchina, Rigoletto and in Madina. He is alternated by Pierluigi d'Aloia, who won the AsLiCo competition in 2020 and entered the Academy in 2022, participating in Le nozze di Figaro in Muscat, among others. In 2022, he also made his debut in Mozart's Bastiano e Bastiana in Palermo, Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto in Ancona, Cecchina the hurdy-gurdy player in Pesaro, La Sonnambula in Lugano under the baton of Andrea Cupia, and Il signor Bruschino in Bologna, as well as being a cover for artists such as Juan Diego Flórez and John Osborne.
The cast is completed by Huanhong Livio Li as Basilio, Greta Doveri and Nicole Wacker as Berta, Giuseppe De Luca as Fiorello and Matias Moncada as Ufficiale.
Ph. Brescia/Amisano (c) Teatro alla Scala
