Mozart Don Giovanni

A tragic tale in which love and filial sentiment battle in a political intrigue around the fascinating character of Simon, a privateer become doge: Simon Boccanegra is one of Verdi’s greatest operas, over which floats the shadow of his admiration for Shakespeare. For this captivating and moving score, the Dijon Bourgogne Orchestra has called upon one of the great Verdi specialists, Roberto Rizzi Brignoli, whose Traviata in 2011 demonstrated his intimate and precise knowledge of the Italian master’s style, and the German stage director Philipp Himmelmann, a regular at Unter den Linden in Berlin and the great European stages.

Presented at Baden-Baden’s Pentecost Festival, this production of Boito’s Mefistofele captured the hearts of both audiences and critics—a rare feat! The success was unmistakably due in great part to the presence of Erwin Schrott—already celebrated for his performance as a seductive, witty, and diabolical Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust. The masterfully subtle Charles Castronovo incarnates the disillusioned philosopher Faust, who makes a deal with the devil. Philipp Himmelmann’s staging combines simple elements (a stage curtain made of silvery filaments and a giant protean skull) to incredible effect to tell the story of Goethe’s Faust.