Aleko is Rachmaninoff at his most effusive, in an exquisite score brimming with his trademark soaring melodies. Sir Bryn Terfel is Pushkin’s Romantic hero, a tormented victim of passion with a knife at the ready for any wrong-doing.
He has turned his back on the ordinary world to be with Zemfira who breaks him. The blood-drenched show-down presents a side of Bryn that is rarely – if ever – seen. Bizet’s Carmen, written two decades before, was drawn from this same Pushkin verse story.
In marked contrast, Bryn is Puccini’s comic trickster Gianni Schicchi
(pronounced Junny Skikki), called in by the wealthy Donatis to solve a family problem. He refuses – until his daughter sings Puccini’s most famous aria O mio babbino caro.
This comic masterpiece (Puccini’s only comedy and written towards the end of his life) is built on every family’s nightmare: the reading of a will that goes disastrously wrong.
If you’ve never laughed out loud at an opera, try this!
Performance Dates:
Thursday 6 June: 5:45pm
Saturday 15 June: 5:15pm
Thursday 20 June: 5:45pm
Sunday 23 June: 5:15pm
Wednesday 26 June: 5:45pm
Saturday 29 June: 5:15pm
Sunday 7 July: 5:15pm