Simon Lim

After a supernatural prophecy and at the urging of his wife, a Scottish lord kills the king and claims the throne. Fearful of being found out, he leads a reign of terror against his people. Shakespeare’s plays provided Verdi with lifelong inspiration, and Macbeth was the first that he adapted for the operatic stage. Teatro la Fenice opens its 2018/19 season with this new production, directed by Venice’s own Damiano Michieletto, who creates a dreamlike world full of imagination and hallucinations.

Fromental Halévy’s five-act grand opera La Juive (‘The Jewess’) is one of the most popular operas of the 19th century, captivating audiences ever since its debut at the Opéra de Paris in 1835. Set in the 15th century and full of pageantry, the subject is the forbidden love between a Christian man and a Jewish woman, and the tragedy that ensues. Oper Frankfurt’s contemporary staging won great acclaim, with Ambur Braid being lauded for her ‘luminous soprano’ as the heroine Rachel, and ‘vocal phenomenon’ John Osborn heralded in the role of her father Éléazar as ‘immensely moving’.

In Trelinski's timeless production he leads a superb, first-class young cast headed by Artur Ruzinski as Onegin and Kristīne Opolais as Tatyana. Mariusz Trelinski, Polish filmmaker and theater director, has created a series of dream-like, surrealist tableaux of great suggestive beauty.