La vita è sogno
Gianfrancesco Malipiero
Malibran Theatre
La Fenice Orchestra & Choir
Conductor Francesco Lanzillotta
Director Valentino Villa
Sets Massimo Checchetto
Costumes Elena Cicorella
Light designer Fabio Barettin
New production
The Opera lasts about 75 minutes without interval
La vita è sogno by Gian Francesco Malipiero will be revived by the Teatro La Fenice eighty years after its Venetian premiere on 24 April 1944. Based on the play of the same name by Calderón de la Barca, the opera belongs to a creative phase of the Venetian musician, who is renowned for his prolific opera production. His work is generally characterised by a rejection of the drama-musical conventions of 18th-century opera and his predilection for the Commedia dell’Arte. However, La vita è sogno – along with other works, composed between 1936 and 1943 and based on great theatre ‘classics’ – represents ‘a lyrical parenthesis’, as the author himself described it, with an approach that draws closer to traditional opera, and is characterised by a limited use of the recitative and a coherent development of the action. What remains, however, is the articulation of juxtaposed ‘panels’ that is typical of Malipiero’s music.
