Everyone standing and a warm welcome to the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, this evening at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice for the premiere of the 2023/24 opera season with the performance of “The Tales of Hoffmann” by Jacques Offenbach. Before the opera began, the national anthem was played and then there was a long, almost five-minute applause with a standing ovation for the head of state from the thousand in attendance.
And at the end of the performance there was another standing ovation with eleven minutes of applause for the Fenice orchestra and choir as well as the entire cast. With a touching extra program at the end, almost a homage to the tragedy of Giulia Cecchettin and the other victims of femicide: Olympia, played by Rocío Pérez, went backstage, picked up a pair of red shoes, brought them and lifted them up on the stage to then place them on the stage.
Immediately after his entry into the theater, President Mattarella, to endless applause, made several gestures of his hand towards the audience and boxes, as if he wanted to thank him for the honor bestowed upon him.
In the royal box with the President of the Republic and his daughter Laura, accompanied by her husband Cosimo Comella, were: Luigi Brugnaro, Mayor of Venice, with his wife; Luca Zaia, President of the Veneto Region, also with his wife; Gianmarco Mazzi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture; Renato Brunetta, President of the Cnel – National Council of Economy and Labor and the Venice World Capital of Sustainability Foundation, with his wife; the Prefect of Venice, Michele Di Bari; Fortunato Ortombina, director of the Teatro La Fenice. There was also a lot of applause for Mattarella when he arrived at the theater, with the audience chanting “Long live the President” and “Long live Italy.”
Now it was Maestro Frédéric Chaslin’s turn to raise his baton and begin leading the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro La Fenice in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, a fantastic opera – divided into a prologue, three acts and an epilogue – composed by Offenbach in 1880 and inspired by the fantastic-demonic stories of ETA Hoffmann (The Sandman, The Story of the Lost Mirror Image and The Violin of Cremona).
The opera, missing from the Phoenician program since 1994, was presented in a new production directed by the Venetian Damiano Michieletto, supported by a creative team consisting of Paolo Fantin for the sets, Carla Teti for the costumes and Alessandro Carletti for the lighting design and Chiara Vecchi for choreography. The cast consists of Ivan Ayon Rivas, Alex Esposito, Carmela Remigio, Veronique Gens, Rocío Pérez in the main roles. At the end, after a performance of three hours and forty minutes, the audience triumphantly led the orchestra, choir and performers in a very long, eleven-minute applause.
As befits a premiere, there was a flood of tuxedos and long dresses and even a few fur coats in the stands and boxes. In the audience, among the guests were the actress Ottavia Piccolo, the singer Samuel Romano, the frontman of Subsonica, the writer Tiziano Scarpa, the artist Fabrizio Plessi, the physicist Piero Martin, the writer Giovanni Montanaro and the make-up artist Diego Dalla Palma, the journalist Roberto D’Agostino. The presence of the city’s personalities was strong: Benno Albrecht, rector of Iuav, Emanuela Bassetti, vice-president of the Marsilio publishing house, Giampiero Beltotto, president of the Teatro Stabile del Veneto, Camilla Bianchini, president of the Amici della Fenice, Gaetano Bonaccorso, commissioner, among others of Venice, Michele Bugliesi, President of the Venice Foundation, Renata Codello, Director of the Cini Foundation, Roberto Papetti, Director of the newspaper “Il Gazzettino”.
The President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, has already been to the Teatro La Fenice for the 150th anniversary of the University of Ca’ Foscari in 2018 and for a conference organized by the Chamber of Commerce in 2016: this is the first time as a spectator of the opera. However, the last time the head of state visited the Serenissima was in 2022, for the solemn oath of students on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the “Francesco Morosini” military naval school.
(by Paolo Martini)
