FULL LA CIOCIARA (Tutino) Wexford 2023 Na’ama Goldman, Jade Phoenix, Leonardo Caimi, Devid Cecconi
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: La Ciociara
- Composer: Marco Tutino
- Libretto: Marco Tutino, Fabio Ceresa, dalla sceneggiatura di Luca Rossi e dal romanzo omonimo di Alberto Moravia Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: O'Reilly Theatre, National Opera House, Wexford, Ireland
- Recorded: October 28, 2023
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Na'ama Goldman, Jade Phoenix, Leonardo Caimi, Devid Cecconi, Alexander Kiechle, Allen Boxer, Carolyn Dobbin, Conor Prendiville, Erin Fflur
- Conductor: Francesco Cilluffo
- Orchestra: Wexford Festival Orchestra WFO
- Chorus: Wexford Festival Chorus
- Stage Director: Rosetta Cucchi
- Stage Designer: Tiziano Santi
- Costume Designer: Claudia Pernigotti
- Lighting Designer: Daniele Naldi
Information about the Recording
- Published by: RTÉ - IRELAND’S NATIONAL PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA
- Date Published: 2023
- Format: Broadcast
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Two Women is a powerful and poignant opera that highlights the strength of the human spirit in the most challenging of circumstances. In its evocative music and compelling storytelling, it reminds us of the indomitable nature of the human spirit. Second World War. 1943. Italy is under the crossfire of the Nazi and Allied armies. Rome has been evacuated to prevent civilian casualties. Bombs and hunger don’t make it tempting to stay in the city. So Cesira decides to embark on a journey to her hometown. She closes the shop, takes her 14-year-old daughter Rosetta with her and what she can fit in a couple of suitcases. She doesn’t know she is setting off on foot for a much longer and more tormented journey than she imagined.
On this journey through Ciociarìa she will encounter a lot of misery, a lot of solidarity but also a lot of selfishness from other people. Above all, she will meet Michele, a handsome intellectual, who will eventually be captured and killed by Nazi troops.
She will know all the horrors of war: raped by a group of passing Moroccan soldiers belonging to the allied forces), Cesira and Rosetta will have to change forever their approach to conflicts, humanity and life.
Operas based on movies — more often than not themselves based on books — have become an increasing feature of the operatic landscape in recent decades. La ciociara is probably best known in the 1960 film adaptation (Two Women) starring Sophia Loren, which, as directed by Vittorio de Sica, won her an Academy Award for Best Actress and made her the first such winner for a non-English film. It followed only three years after the publication of Alberto Moravia’s novel of the same name, telling the harrowing story of a woman attempting to shield her teenage daughter from the horrors of war and in particular the weapon of rape in the aftermath of the Battle of Monte Cassino. A television adaptation also followed in the 1960s, and much more recently an operatic version was commissioned from the composer Marco Tutino by San Francisco Opera. With a cast led by Anna Caterina Antonacci, it was premiered there in June 2015.
The anti-fascist Moravia (1907-90) took refuge during World War II in the province of Frosinone, not far from his native Rome, a region the fascists named ‘Ciociara’, and his experience there found its way into the novel. The much younger Tutino, born in Milan in 1954, has written about a dozen operas, including an adaption of Sándor Márai’s Embers (Le braci). One of his earliest operas was La lupa, a verismo work designed to celebrate the centenary of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and very much in keeping with his manifesto as a founding member of the Neo-Romantico group of composers.
He has indeed described La ciociara as ‘neo verismo’, and knows of what he speaks: in parallel with his composition work, Tutino has held a series of artistic directorships including at prominent Italian opera houses, and is deeply steeped in operatic culture. He has revised the orchestration for La ciociara, meaning that Wexford will give the professional premiere of the opera’s new version.