SYMPHONIC SEASON 2025
James Conlon director
MOZART | BRAHMS
Main Partner
PROGRAM
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
From “Thamos, King of Egypt,” Intermezzi, K. 345
From “Lucius Silas,” Ouvertur, K 135
Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 2 in D major, op. 73
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
PROGRAM
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
From “Thamos, King of Egypt,” Intermezzi, K. 345
In 1773, the 17-year-old Mozart met Emanuel Schikaneder, the future librettist of the Magic Flute and a charismatic actor, who convinced the young composer to write an opera on the subject of Tobias Philipp von Gebler, an ancient Egyptian story centered on the goodness of Thamos, son of the usurper Rameses. The composition, now very rarely performed, includes five instrumental pieces in addition to the three choruses, which already show an extraordinary modernity, presaging the future achievements of “Idomeneo.”
From “Lucius Sulla,” Overture, K 135
The 16-year-old Mozart had been out of Bologna for a couple of years when on December 26, 1772, he presented at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan the drama “Lucio Silla,” about the events of the Roman dictator and military man who lived a century before Christ. With this third and most ambitious opera (which followed “Ascanio in Alba” and “Mitridate, re di Ponto”) Mozart successfully concluded his activity on Italian stages, proving that he was now a genius in musical theater as well. “Lucius Sulla” remained on the bill for as many as twenty-five performances.
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 2 in D major, op. 73
To write and fire his first symphony Brahms had waited until he was 43 years old. Much shorter and more spontaneous was the genesis of his Second Symphony, written almost on the spur of the moment in the summer of 1877, during the always fruitful vacation periods spent in Carinthia, “a virgin soil, where so many melodies hover that one must be careful not to step on any of them,” the Hamburg composer described it. If the First was pointed to by critics as Beethoven’s “The Tenth,” in a sign of continuity with the genre’s great master, the Second was dubbed “Schubert’s last Symphony,” for its markedly melodic and cantabile spirit. Definitions aside, Carinthia’s Wörthersee brought good luck to Brahms, who composed his legendary Violin Concerto the following year, again against the backdrop of those Austrian landscapes.
PROGRAM
Hector Berlioz
Overture, “Le Carnaval Romain”
In 1844 Hector Berlioz, among the great fathers of French Romanticism and one of the greatest innovators in the symphonic field, wrote a concert piece in A major with an extensive solo part reserved for the English horn. Thus was born the Overture “Le Carnaval romain,” a brilliant piece of broad melodic generosity, full of themes from the opera Benvenuto Cellini, composed six years earlier. The themes of the opera used, in fact, are those related to the Roman carnival scenes from which the overture takes its title.
Claude Debussy
“Prèlude à l’après-midi d’un faune.”
The notes are released like sensual exhalations in “Prélude a l’après-midi d’un faune” (1892-94) Claude Debussy’s first great symphonic masterpiece, which is immediately presented with its “new breath” (Pierre Boulez’s definition) thanks to the flute’s enigmatic opening phrase, “so full of voluptuousness as to become anguished,” Vladimir Jankélévitch’s words.
ORCHESTRA DEL TEATRO COMUNALE DI BOLOGNA
ORCHESTRA DEL TEATRO COMUNALE DI BOLOGNA
An orchestra of great tradition, Sergiu Celibidache, ZoltánPeskó, Vladimir Delman, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti, and Michele Mariotti have taken turns at its helm as music directors. Among the conductors who have led the ensemble are Gary Bertini, Myung-Whun Chung, James Conlon, Pinchas Steinberg, Valery Gergiev, Eliau Inbal, Vladimir Jurowskij, Daniel Oren, Peter Maag, Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Muti, Mstislav Rostropovič, Esa Pekka Salonen, Georg Solti, Christian Thielemann, Charles Dutoit, Georges Prêtre. The Teatro Comunale Orchestra is frequently invited abroad (Holland, Romania, Spain, France and Switzerland) and has participated in prestigious festivals (Amsterdam 1987, Parma 1990, Wiesbaden 1994, Santander 2004 and 2008, Aix en Provence 2005, Savonlinna 2006, Macau 2013, Muscat 2015, Guanajuato in Mexico 2017, Paris 2018). A privileged relationship with Japan has resulted in several tours, most recently in June 2019 in Osaka, Tokyo, Yokohama, Fukuoka, with Rigoletto and Il barbiere di Siviglia.
Numerous record productions, including La Favorita diretta da Richard Bonynge, Oberto Conte di San Bonifacio diretto da Zoltán Peskó, Il barbiere di Siviglia diretto da Giuseppe Patané, La figlia del reggimento diretta da Bruno Campanella, Le maschere e La bohème dirette da Gianluigi Gelmetti, La scala di seta diretta da Gabriele Ferro, Macbeth, Manon Lescaut, Rigoletto, La cenerentola, Messa Solenne e le produzioni videografiche dei Vespri siciliani e di Giovanna d’Arco e Werther dirette da Riccardo Chailly, Armida diretta da Daniele Gatti, Simon Boccanegra e Attila diretti da Michele Mariotti .
The Orchestra, led by Mariotti, has recorded for Decca a CD of sacred arias with Juan Diego Flórez and for Sony an album of romantic arias with Nino Machaidze; for Deutsche Grammophon Le Comte Ory with Flórez and La Nuit de Mai, opera arias and songs by Leoncavallo, with Placido Domingo; and for the PENTATONE label a CD of Rossini overtures to celebrate 150 years since the composer’s death.In April 2021 the orchestra recorded for Deutsche Grammophon a forthcoming disc with tenor Benjamin Bernheim and Frédéric Chaslin on the podium.
Nel marzo 2013 i corpi artistici del Teatro Comunale di Bologna diretti da Mariotti sono stati protagonisti del concerto inaugurale del IV Festival internazionale Mstislav Rostropovich di Mosca eseguendo la Messa da Requiem di Verdi. Poi nell’ottobre del 2015 hanno inaugurato la rassegna Lingotto Musica presso l’Auditorium Giovanni Agnelli di Torino, dove hanno eseguito lo Stabat Mater, l’Ouverture e le Danze dal Guillaume Tell di Rossini. Inoltre, la nuova produzione della Bohème al Teatro Comunale, con la regia di Graham Vick e la direzione di Mariotti, ha vinto il Premio Abbiati come miglior spettacolo del 2018.
After thirty years of participation in the Rossini Opera Festival (from 1988 to 2016), 2017 marked a new collaboration between the Municipal Theatre of Bologna and the Verdi Festival of Parma which, among the various productions, saw the Orchestra engaged in the Stiffelio signed by Graham Vick. Staged at the Farnese Theatre, it achieved a great success with the public and critics by winning the Special Prize of the 37th “Franco Abbiati” Music Critics Award. In 2019 the Orchestra was the protagonist of the Verdi Festival in the Luisa Miller at the church of San Francesco del Prato in Parma and in the Aida at the Verdi Theatre in Busseto, while in 2020 of a symphonic concert conducted by Valerij Gergiev at the Teatro Regio in Parma. Since January 2022 the Musical Director of the Municipal Theatre of Bologna is Oksana Lyniv.
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11 DEC | H 20:30
Auditorium Manzoni
Oct. 31 | H 8:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
26 SEP | H 8:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
31 MAY | H 8:30 p.m.
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21 SET | H 8:30 p.m.
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16 SEP | H 8:30 p.m.
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APR 30 | H 8:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
JUN 20 | H 8:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
10 MAG | H 8:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
6 MAG | H 8:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
24 APR | H 20.30
Auditorium Manzoni
28 MAR | H 8:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
1 DEC | H 20:30
Auditorium Manzoni
16 MAR | H 5:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
12 MAR | H 8:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
6 MAR | H 8:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
17 FEB | H 20.30
Auditorium Manzoni
8 FEB | H 8:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
2 FEB | H 5:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
JAN 12 | H 5:30 p.m.
Auditorium Manzoni
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