Savonlinna Opera Festival 3.7. –1.8., 2009
This summer the Savonlinna Opera Festival will be operating some sensational musical visits to opera’s homeland – Italy.
The festival season July 3 – August 1, 2009 begins with one of the most popular works in the operatic repertoire, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. This production telling the tragic tale of a Japanese Geisha and an American officer will be in the hands of experts with an inside view of both cultures, for stage director Henry Akina, stage designer Dean Shibuya and costume designer Anna Namba are all Americans of Asian descent.
Savonlinna’s other own productions this year are Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele, Puccini’s Turandot and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Singing the title role in Mefistofele will be star Italian bass Carlo Colombara and the conductor is Philippe Auguin. Mefistofele is an opera that allows the Savonlinna Opera Festival Choir to demonstrate its vocal and dramatic skills to the full. Pet Halmen’s visualisation of Turandot is in turn one of the Festival’s most popular and most spectacular productions. Excelling in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor is the Festival’s Artist of the Year for 2009, soprano Eglise Gutiérrez, who shot to international fame after appearing at the Savonlinna Festival in summer 2007.
Visit by the Teatro Massimo di Palermo
The guest theatre for this season is the Teatro Massimo from Palermo, one of Italy’s biggest and leading opera houses. This famous Sicilian company is bringing along two little gems from the Italian opera repertoire: Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, and Bellini’s I Puritani in Finland’s first ever stage performance.
Martti Talvela memorial concert and three outstanding sopranos
This year will mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Martti Talvela, for many years the driving force behind the Savonlinna Opera Festival. Appearing in the memorial concert in Olavinlinna Castle on July 12 will be the Savonlinna Opera Festival Orchestra along with Matti Salminen and other soloists. The programme for the season also includes recitals by Artist of the Year Eglise Gutiérrez, Soile Isokoski and Camilla Nylund at the Savonlinna Hall.