Thursday June 29, Saturday July 1 and Monday July 3, 2023 – h. 21.00

200.Com A project for the city

AIDA

Music by Giuseppe Verdi. Libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni.

The King Nicola Ciancio
Amneris Sofia Janelidze
Aida Clarissa Costanzo
Radames Dario Di Vietri
Ramfis Luca Gallo
Amonasro Luca Galli
A messenger Ermes Nizzardo
A high priestess Aoxue Zhu

Conductor Enrico Lombardi
Director Alessio Pizzech

Scenes and costumes Davide Amadei
Collaborating scenographers and costume designers Giulia Bruschi, Riccardo Mainetti
Lighting designer Nevio Cavina  

Chorus Master Massimo Fiocchi Malaspina
Assistant Chorus masters Davide Dell’Oca, Arianna Lodi, Cristina Merlini

Orchestra 1813
Chorus 200.Com

Production Teatro Sociale Como AsLiCo

The quotation from the duet between Aida and Radames in Act III is absolutely fitting to define a directorial vision of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, which I feel is increasingly suspended in time and space, in a flow between mythical past and post-modern future.

The intention that moves me is to create a performance that makes us feel the time span that separates us from the Egyptian world, but that also projects the spectator into a mythical world, ancestral and future at the same time, involving them in an experience of vision, of active participation of the gaze and the soul, as if the points of view from which to observe Verdi’s story were multiplied and it were possible to choose the ‘subjective’ from  which to reread this extraordinary work.

In identifying ourselves with Aida, we as spectators will bring our inner questions about what our future will be in times of such great contradictions, and it is precisely in the richness of the bitter dialectic between good and evil, between loving strength and the power of weapons, between family ties and individual choices that a strong and still topical dramaturgy such as that of this opera resides.

Central will thus be the image of the Pyramid, a place-container of human events that, preserved in the time of memory, are projected into the present of representation: the contrast between darkness and light, the link between earth and sky, up to the stars.

I accepted with joy and enthusiasm to sign the direction of Aida for AsLiCo. Together with my directing team (Nevio Cavina on lights and Davide Amadei for sets and costumes, and the young set and costume designers Giulia Bruschi and Riccardo Mainetti who carried on the visual project after Amadei’s sudden passing) we waited for two years for this project to materialise, with the tenacity and professionalism that characterises the work of the Teatro Sociale Como. The staging with the chorus of 200 citizens excites me and raises questions about the meaning of artistic action as a director, about the relationship between ethics and aesthetics, about the ability as professionals to preserve the passion that is at the root of our choice of work and that guides 200 citizens in their months-long study. I would like Aida to represent an encounter with a community that recognises itself all together in that artistic act. This work wants to be a tribute to the power of affection that is released in the language of opera where the chorus plays a very powerful role, in the sense of ancient tragedy: a mirror of a community that all too often does not want to see itself, rejects its self-image or, on the contrary, narcissistically adores it.

Alessio Pizzech

BIO ENRICO LOMBARDI Conductor

After studying piano, organ and composition, he graduated with top marks, praise and mention in Choral Music and Choir Conducting at the ‘G. Frescobaldi’ Conservatory in Ferrara and in Orchestral Conducting at the ‘L. Cherubini’ Conservatory in Florence. He also graduated in History of Music at the University of Bologna.

He has participated in several master classes with renowned teachers. He was a finalist in the “Nino Rota” International Conducting Competition (2019), winning the prize of the Magna Grecia Orchestra. He collaborates with the Collegium Musicum Almae Matris (Bologna), with which he frequently studies and performs lesser-known works. For the Ut Orpheus publishing house, he edited the singing and piano reduction of Saverio Mercadante’s opera Francesca da Rimini, performed at the Festival della Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca under the baton of Fabio Luisi. As Francesco Lanzillotta’s assistant, he worked at the Opéra national de Lorraine, at the Valli and Pavarotti Theatres in Reggio Emilia and Modena, and at the Macerata Opera Festival. He has collaborated with the Roma Sinfonietta and Magna Grecia orchestras, while at the theatre of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino he conducted the intermezzo Il Giuocatore by Luigi Cherubini. He toured various Italian theatres with G. Rossini’s La Cenerentola (project ‘Opera domani’ – AsLiCo), and collaborated with the Milan Symphonic Orchestra, where he leads the Junior Symphonic Orchestra. He conducted for OperaLombardia La Traviata directed by Luca Baracchini in the 2022/23 Season.

BIO ALESSIO PIZZECH Director

Alessio Pizzech, year 1972, is an all-round showman. He took up singing as a child, worked in a circus until he was 18 and was described by critics as one of the most significant Italian directors at a very young age. With extraordinary energy, he has staged around 150 shows between prose and opera, collaborating with all the major Italian theatres and festivals. His activity is multifaceted, both in prose and musical theatre, as well as artistic director of cultural institutions and projects. Of particular relevance is his activity as a trainer since 1993 in Italy and abroad. He has to his credit a contribution to the publication “I Teatri della scuola” published by the Province of Pisa. He teaches acting at the National Academy of Ancient Drama in Syracuse. He regularly holds acting masterclasses for important Italian institutions such as the Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto and Aslico, and abroad for various conservatories including Beirut and Stavanger in Norway. He is the artistic director of the Teatro De Filippo in Cecina and of the ‘InOpera’ festival of the Municipality of Rosignano Marittimo.

I AREA: 40€ + 5€ prev.
II AREA: 35€ + 3€ prev.

View seating plan

In case of rain or unfavorable weather, Arena performances will be held on the same evening at Teatro Sociale di Como, without sets. If the performance is interrupted after the beginning of the show, because of bad weather conditions, tickets are non-refundable.

Each seating area of the Arena has a corresponding seating sector in the Theatre. Check below how to find your sector in the Theatre:

• I AREA corresponds to the stalls and boxes;
• II AREA correspond to the galleries.