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Simon Boccanegra
Opéra Bastille - from 15 November to 13 December 2018
Simon Boccanegra
Giuseppe Verdi
Opéra Bastille - from 15 November to 13 December 2018
2h50 with 1 interval
Language : Italian
Surtitle : French / English
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Opening night : 15 November 2018
Pre-opening : 12 November 2018
About
In few words:
The ambiguities of Verdi’s theatre are particularly clear in his baritone roles, among which is that of Boccanegra, corsair turned doge of Genoa and the troubled observer of the conflicts that tore apart 14th century landowners and peasants. An eminently political opera in which power struggles are interwoven with family conflicts, Simon Boccanegra echoes the life of its composer – the man who championed the cause of Italian unification and overcame the loss of his wife and children. Calixto Bieito, that most Shakespearean of opera directors, brings humanism and truth to a work haunted by gleaming images of the sea.
- Opening
- First Part 80 mn
- Interval 30 mn
- Second Part 60 mn
- End
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Simon Boccanegra
Opera in three acts (1857)
After Antonio Garcia Guttiérrez
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Performances
Book your tickets today with the Season Pass
Available in audiodescription
Advantages
Full
Book your tickets today with the Season Pass
Available in audiodescription
Advantages
Full
Gallery
Videos clips
Audio clips
Simon Boccanegra (Saison 18/19) - Air d'Amelia Come In Questast's Ora Bruna Acte 1
Simon Boccanegra (Saison 18/19)- Air De Gabriele Cielo Pietoso Rendila Acte 2
Simon Boccanegra (Saison 18/19)- Air de Simon Plebe Plaritzi Popolo Acte 1
Simon Boccanegra (Saison 18/19)- Air d'Amelia et Simon Acte 1
Backstage
© Elena Bauer / OnP
04:58’
Video
Pater dolorosus
Interview with Ludovic Tézier
© Elena Bauer / OnP
Article
The spirit of Boccanegra sails onwards
Interview with Calixto Bieito
04’
Simon Boccanegra is based on the eponymous work by the Spanish Romantic playwright, Antonio García Gutiérrez. What, in Verdi, remains of his drama?
You once qualified this opera as a strange work... In what way is it strange?
How do you envisage the interactions between the private and public spheres that punctuate the work from beginning to end?
Simon’s peace-making
policy has its origins in his love for his daughter, but also in her loss which
prompts him to seek a lost harmony. A quest that will unfortunately prove
sterile... The character’s sadness echoes today's world in which
disillusionment with humanity is every day palpable. As well as transforming
Gutiérrez’s text, Arrigo Boito’s inclusion in the libretto of Petrarch’s letter
calling for reconciliation confers on Simon a humanist dimension. His
exhortation for peace has not been common in the mouths of politicians, either
in Verdi’s day or in our own.
Simon Boccanegra is a work in which the sea is omnipresent. Have you tried to give the maritime image a more up-to-date, political resonance?
For Simon, the sea is
synonymous with freedom. The immigrant crisis reminds us daily that the sea is
also murderous. However, that wasn’t a theme I wished to take up. It didn’t
seem really opportune. Above all, I tried to explore what there is within
Simon, the memories he keeps locked inside him, the dreams, the nightmares.
Therefore I had to imagine a mental space, a refuge, that would allow him to
escape from his grief to the obscure zones of his soul and to find once more
the feeling of liberty that was once afforded him by the sea.
© RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Thierry Le Mage
Podcast
Podcast Simon Boccanegra
"Dance! Sing! 7 minutes at the Paris Opera" - by France Musique
07’
Slideshow
Simon Boccanegra’s ship
An interview with José Sciuto, Deputy Artistic Director of the Workshops
“The sea is an essential element in the opera Simon Boccanegra. In Calixto Bieito’s production, that sea has retreated, leaving a huge ship's hull washed up on the stage. The construction of this set was the fruit of a complex and meticulous process, involving almost all the craftspeople in the various workshops—from the research and design office to the workshops specialising in ironwork, carpentry, composite materials, painting, and sculpture, etc. This was an extremely “technological” set: To build it, a three-dimensional scan of a scale model of the ship, created by the sculpture workshop, allowed the design office to create a blueprint for the surface of the hull and its inner structure. Using these components as a starting point, a large number of metallic pieces were laser-cut and then assembled. Some thirty moulds were prepared to create the metal plates for the hull. These plates were also designed in a way that they could be used as a projection surface for the videos that director Calixto Bieito is so fond of.”
Ce spectacle fait l’objet d’une captation réalisée par François Roussillon, coproduite par l’Opéra national de Paris et FRA Productions, avec la participation de France 2, avec le soutien du CNC et de la Fondation Orange, mécène des retransmissions audiovisuelles de l’Opéra national de Paris. Ce spectacle sera retransmis en direct sur Culturebox le 13 décembre 2018 à 19h30. Il sera également retransmis le même jour en direct avec le concours de Fra Cinéma, dans les cinémas UGC, dans le cadre de leur saison « Viva l’Opéra ! », dans les cinémas CGR et dans des cinémas indépendants en France et dans le monde entier. Il sera retransmis ultérieurement sur France 2.
Radiodiffusion sur France Musique le 30 décembre 2018 à 20h.
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