The Teatro del Maggio Musicale Reopens
The Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino will be the first Italian opera house to open its doors to the public. Beginning on June 17, after months of lockdown, an audience of 200 will be allowed to hear a live performance following national guidelines for social distancing.
There are seven concerts scheduled (June 17, 20, 23, 27, 30 and July 3, 7) which will also be streamed live on the Idagio platform. Zubin Mehta, the MMF’s honorary music director will conduct six of these concerts, with a seventh led by Daniele Gatti. The entire program will be concentrated on Viennese musical tradition from the 18th to the 20th century, ranging from Haydn and Mozart to Webern and Berg.
The series will begin on June 17 with Alban Berg‘s Violin Concerto, dedicated “To the Memory of an Angel’. It was composed in 1935 and was his final composition before his death a few months later. He wrote the work to commemorate the short life of Manon, the 18-year old daughter of the famous architect Walter Gropius (founder of the Bauhaus) and his wife, Gustav Mahler’s widow, Alma Mahler, who died suddenly after contracting polio. The solo will be performed by internationally acclaimed violinist Leonidas Kavakos, who is well-known to the Florentine audience. By the age of 21, he had already won three major competitions: the Sibelius Competition in 1985, and the Paganini and Naumburg competitions in 1988 and he is now an exclusive recording artist with Sony Classics. The program concludes with the Schubert C-minor Symphony (1816) which the 19 year-old Schubert himself dubbed the “Tragic”, and while it is the most serious of his symphonies, it is considered that there is more youthful vitality in this music than tragedy. Sadly as with many of his other works, this symphony was not performed during his lifetime but only 21 years after his death.
In the program of June 20, the soprano Eva Mei will interpret the enchanting “Exultate Jubilate” motet in F major K.165 by Mozart for soprano and orchestra. She then joins with the voices of the mezzo-soprano Francesca Cucuzza, the tenor Valentino Buzza, the bass Gianluca Buratto along with the MMF’s chorus in the “Krönungsmesse” in C major K. 317. Also on the program, Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony n. 8 and Mozart’s moving ‘Ave Verum Corpus’.
On June 23, Mehta will be joined by the exceptional presence of Daniel Barenboim as soloist for the Concerto n. 3 in C minor op. 37 for piano and orchestra by Ludwig van Beethoven. While in Florence, Maestro Barenboim will be awarded with an honorary degree in International Relations and European Studies from the University of Florence for his “contribution to the creation of international relations marked by pacifism and collaboration between peoples.”
Daniele Gatti will conduct two Franz Joseph Haydn symphonies on June 27, the Symphony in C major “Maria Theresia” and the Symphony in B flat major “La Reine”, in addition to the dances from the third act (scene 3) from Orpheus and Eurydice by Christoph Willibald Gluck. On June 30, Mehta leads the orchestra in two Viennese masterpieces. Anton Webern’s ‘Six pieces for orchestra, Op. 6’ were composed in 1910 and dedicated to his mentor Arnold Schoenberg who conducted the first performance. In a strong contrast of musical style follows Franz Schubert’s monumental Symphony No. 9 in C major D. 944, ‘the Great’ composed in 1849.
To conclude the series, on July 7, Mehta conducts Schubert’s Symphony No. 6, known as the Little C major, and Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli (Mass in time of war) in C major Hob. XXII: 9 for soloists, chorus and orchestra.
Tickets will be on sale on the website and at the Teatro del Maggio ticket office for €100 starting on June 15 (10 am – 6 pm). Tickets for streaming will be available on the Idagio platform at a price of €9.90 and will allow viewing and listening to the concert for 24 hours from the moment of live performance. All concerts are scheduled at 8 pm. (anne lokken)
