Pietro Mascagni: Isabeau

Pietro Mascagni: Isabeau

Holland Park continues to delight Opera fans with its Opera Holland Park project. This time the audience is invited to go back to the middle Ages and appreciate the new interpretation of the legend of lady Godiva – in the version of the Italian composer Pietro Mascagni. Isabeau is a perfect example of how to fill at first glance a domestic Opera with medieval charm and nobility.  Director Martin Lloyd-Evans; in the main roles of Anne Sophie Duprel (Isabeau) and Mikhail Svetlov (King Raimondo).

As punishment the King forces Isabeau to ride naked on horseback through the town. While the people refuse to look, Folco, the King’s falconer, accidentally glimpses her and is arrested. Visiting Folco in prison, Isabeau falls in love with him, a passion which is doomed.

Written to a libretto by Luigi Illica, Mascagni’s collaborator on Iris, this adaptation of the medieval legend of Lady Godiva fuses the suspense and violence of Cavalleria Rusticana with delirious Wagnerian harmonies and an Intermezzo rich with the sound of bells.

Isabeau is a co-production with New York City Opera

Mikhail Svetlov. In 1983, he graduated from Moscow State Conservatoire (Evgeny Nesterenko’s class). From 1983-96, he was a soloist at the Bolshoi Theatre. His repertoire at the Bolshoi included the following, among other, roles: Gusli player (The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and of the Maiden Fevronia), Galitsky (Prince Igor), Title role (Haendel’s Giulio Cesare), Sobakin (The Tsar’s Bride), Gremin (Eugene Onegin), Saltan (The Tale of Tsar Saltan), Angelotti (Tosca), Dodon (The Golden Cockerel), Dosifey (Khovanshchina), King Rene (Iolanta), Mendoza (Betrothal in a Monastery), Dunua (The Maid of Orleans), Boris Godunov (Boris Godunov), Mephistopheles (Faust), Ferrando (Il Trovatore)

The singer’s international career took off with his debut at the Wexford Festival.
He sang Ferrando (Il Trovatore) at the Salzburg Festival, Sparafucile (Rigoletto) at the Hamburg State Opera, took part in a performance of Don Giovanni at the Yehudi Menuhin Festival in Gstaad. Appears frequently in the USA and Canada.

Recent engagements include:
Sir Giorgio Valton (I Puritani) at the Baltimore Opera
Osmin (Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail) and Scarpia (Tosca) at Atlanta Opera, Opera de Bellas Artes Mexico and Florida Grand Opera
Varlaam at San Diego Opera
Archibaldo (L’Amore dei tre Re) and Bluebeard (Duke Bluebeard’s Castle) at Opera de Quebec.

He has performed at Teatro Carlo Felice, Arena di Verona, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Baltimore Opera, Atlanta Opera Company, San Diego Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Deutshe Oper Berlin, Bavarian State Opera, Hamburg State Opera, L’Opera de Montreal, Opera de Bellas Artes, New Zeland Opera, Teatro Colon. Has participated in the Bregenz Festival, Salzburg Festival, Gstaad Festival (Switzerland ); Holland Park Opera Festival; Edinburgh Festival; Britten Festival ( UK ); Chaliapin Festival (Russia ).

Has performed with London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish Orchestra, State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, American Symphony Orchestra, RAI Orchestra.
Has collaborated with such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Nello Santi, Antal Doraty, Alexander Lazarev, Hans Graf, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yehudi Menuhin, Leon Botstein, Yury Temirkanov, Evgeny Svetlanov, Ulf Shirmer.

Sources: operahollandpark.com, bolshoi.ru