opera

DON CARLOS – PERFECTION AND EMOTIONS

 

Each encounter with the works of Giuseppe Verdi is a significant challenge and an emotional experience for the theater, offering the audience an opportunity to participate in something important and extraordinary. After the March premiere in Paris in 1867, Verdi was not entirely pleased with the result of his work on Don Carlos. In a short time, he made many changes, and by October of the same year in Bologna, Don Carlos triumphed fully. The drama of Schiller, which serves as the basis for the libretto, acquires new meanings, deeper emotions, and dramatic dynamism. Don Carlos is a perfected musical drama in which the music strongly characterizes individual figures. The spectacular collective scenes do not appear solely "for themselves" but are an integral part of the stage action, emphasizing, commenting, and dynamizing it. Each aria and ensemble is not only a vocal showcase but, above all, emotions and a characteristic characterization of individual characters, always accurate and impressive!

 

The complexities of emotions, friendly rivalries, political intrigues, and the struggle for power—all of this is in Schiller's drama. Even more highlighted—because it is "described" by excellent music—it is in Verdi's opera. Listening to it, we escape from the daily hustle, although it doesn't really want to leave us. So, it's worth listening, detach with thoughts, and try to forget about the "here and now."

 

Especially since in this staged concert performance, we guarantee a musical and vocal interpretation at the highest level performed by soloists, choir, and the orchestra of the Grand Theatre in Łódź. In the leading roles, we will hear Dominik Sutowicz, Monika Cichocka, Anna Wierzbicka, Bernadetta Grabias, Agnieszka Makówka, Grzegorz Szostak, Robert Ulatowski, and Łukasz Motkowicz. The director of this extraordinary concert, with surrealistic images by Wojciech Siudmak in the background, is Michał Znaniecki.

 

In the premiere event on March 19, 2021, the leading roles were played by: Aleksandra Kurzak (Elisabeth), Roberto Alagna (Don Carlos), Andrzej Dobber (Posa), Rafał Siwek (Philip II), Monika Ledzion-Porczyńska (Eboli), as well as soloists, choir, ballet, and orchestra of the Grand Theatre in Łódź under the baton of Maestro Vladimir Kiradjiev.

 

In our theater, this will be the third encounter with Verdi's Don Carlos—after the full staging in 1979 and the concert performance in 1991.