Absent from European stages for over forty years, Bomarzo, the masterpiece by composer Alberto Ginastera, returns in a co-production between the Teatro Real and the Amsterdam Opera. Based on the famous novel of the same name by Manuel Mujica Lainez, the score sets to music the unsettling sculptures of the ‘sacred forest’ that fascinated Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau, André Breton, Michelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti. David Afkham and Pierre Audi direct a strong cast that brings to life the corrupt Italian nobility of the Cinquecento.
Bomarzo, north of Rome. In his final moments of agony after being poisoned, the hunchbacked aristocrat Pier Francesco Orsini is plunged into a dizzying retrospective journey through the darkest passages of his life. The torment of his physical deformity, the childhood traumas inflicted by his father and brothers, and a morbid obsession with immortality are brought to life through the colossal, sinister stone sculptures of his famous Park of the Monsters.
Opera in two acts
Music by Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)
Libretto by Manuel Mujica Lainez, based on his novel Bomarzo
Premiered at the Lisner Auditorium of Washington D.C. on May 16, 1967
Premiere at the Teatro Real
New production of the Teatro Real, in coproduction with De Nationale Opera of Amsterdam
Artistic team
Conductor | David Afkham
Stage director | Pierre Audi
Set and lighting designer | Urs Schönebaum
Costume designer | Wojciech Dziedzic
Playwright | Klaus Bertisch
Video | Jon Rafman
Choreographers | Amir Hosseinpour, Jonathan Lunn
Chorus master | Andrés Máspero
Cast
Pier Francesco Orsini | John Daszak
Gian Corrado Orsini | James Creswell
Diana Orsini | Hilary Summers
Girolamo | Germán Olvera
Maerbale | Damián del Castillo
Julia Farnese | Nicola Beller Carbone
Nicolás Orsini | Albert Casals
Silvio de Nardi | Thomas Olieans
Pantasilea | Milijana Nikolic
Messenger | Francis Tójar
Teatro Real Chorus and Orchestra
