Performed in Italian with synchronised Russian supertitles
Premiere of this production: 25 January 2008, Mikhailovsky theatre, St. Petersburg, Russia
Libretto: Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci after a novel by Giovanni Verga
Owner of the production: Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Teatro Bellini di Catania
A disciple of Luchino Visconti, the world-famous cinema director, the creator of The Night Porter, Liliana Cavani has directed many opera stage productions. The famous Ravenna music festival saw her productions of Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni (1996) and Pagliacci (1998) by Ruggiero Leoncavallo. Cavani’s attention to Mascagni and Leoncavallo could be explained by her interest in verismo — a style in Italian opera that started in 1890. The ultimate simplicity of the subjects taken by the verists from the ordinary life are typical for that kind of the operas. Ordinary life never lacks tragedies. The intense plot jammed into one action — premonition of a catastrophe and bloody payoff — couldn’t fail to attract Liliana Cavani. “Cinema is a sort of psychoanalysis for me”, the director says. Opera productions are psychoanalytical too. In her production of Cavalleria rusticana Liliana Cavani doesn’t confine herself to a sentimental story of a love triangle, she involves the audience into the production, makes them witnesses and accomplices of love, betrayal, murder.