We will be showing I due Foscari live from the Royal Opera House, London on Monday 27th October 2014.
Jacopo Foscari, son of the Doge of Venice, is convicted of murder and treason. His wife Lucrezia is sure of his innocence. But the Doge, trapped by the machinations of a corrupt city, is forced to make a terrible decision.
I due Foscari, Verdi’s sixth opera, is one of his darkest and saddest. At its heart is a father’s realization that there is nothing he can do to protect his family against the world’s cruelties. The 31-year-old composer may well have drawn on his own devastating experience of losing his wife and two infant children a few years earlier. But despite the opera’s sombre soul, the music for I due Foscari contains exhilarating forerunners of Verdi’s later style – particularly in the fiercely virtuosic writing for the heroine Lucrezia and her magnificent duets with the Doge in Act I and with her doomed husband in Act II.
American director Thaddeus Strassberger, making his Royal Opera debut, depicts a Venice that is rotten to its core. Mattie Ullrich’s opulent costume designs reference the opera’s 15th-century setting while suggesting the corruption lurking beneath. The spare sets of award-winning British designer Kevin Knight illustrate the Foscaris’ isolation and the decay of the city, before flaring out into grand guignol for the opera’s brilliant Act III carnival.
Performers
- Conductor
- Antonio Pappano
- Orchestra
- Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
- Francesco Foscari
- Plácido Domingo
- Jacopo Foscari
- Francesco Meli
- Lucrezia Contarini
- Maria Agresta
- Jacopo Loredano
- Maurizio Muraro
- Barbarigo
- Samuel Sakker
- Pisana
- Rachel Kelly
- Fante
- Lee Hickenbottom
- Servant
- John Morrissey
- Chorus
- Royal Opera Chorus
- Concert Master
- Peter Manning
Please arrive by 6.45pm to register and to order interval drinks if you wish.
The George Hotel serves meals – please contact them directly on 01298 871382 if you would like to book a pre-show meal.