VIDEO: Anna Netrebko on Adriana Lecouvreur at The Met

By: Dec. 18, 2018
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Soprano Anna Netrebko discusses "Adriana Lecouvreur" during the Live in HD broadcast of La Traviata with host Anita Rachvelishvili.

Soprano Anna Netrebko joins the ranks of Renata Tebaldi, Montserrat Caballé, and Renata Scotto, taking on-for the first time at the Met-the title role of the real-life French actress who dazzled 18th-century audiences with her on-and offstage passion. The soprano is joined by tenor Piotr Becza?a as Adriana's lover, Maurizio. The principal cast also features mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili and baritone Ambrogio Maestri. Gianandrea Noseda conducts. Sir David McVicar's staging, which sets the action in a working replica of a Baroque theater, premiered at the Royal Opera House in London, where the Guardian praised the "elegant production, sumptuously designed ... The spectacle guarantees a good night out.

Adriana Lecouvreur unfolds in Paris in 1730. The setting reflects a nostalgia for the Rococo era that swept over Europe and the Americas around the turn of the last century when Cilea was composing, evident in other operas (for instance, Puccini's Manon Lescaut) and in architecture.

The score of Adriana Lecouvreur relies on elegance and a deft weaving of themes rather than symphonic grandeur. There are nods to a neo-Rococo style, especially in Act III's dance sequences, but generally the score serves to showcase the singers. Lyricism abounds in the solos, particularly in the tenor's "La dolcissima effigie" in Act I and Adriana's Act I aria "Io son l'umile ancella," whose arching line and theme of the singer as "the humble handmaiden of the creative genius" have made it a soprano anthem of sorts.

For tickets and more visit https://www.metopera.org/season/2018-19-season/Adriana-Lecouvreur/



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