Premiere ARLECCHINO & GIANNI SCHICCHI

Ferruccio Busoni - Giacomo Puccini

Coproduction: Opera of the CNT Ivan pl. Zajc and Opera of the CNT in Osijek

In collaboration with the Opera and Italian Drama of the CNT Ivan pl. Zajc in Rijeka, and as a co-production with the CNT in Osijek, we present Busoni’s Arlecchino, an opera with the thematic basis of the medieval comedy dell’arte, combined with a comic opera from the famous Puccini trilogy. Although both operas were written in the same period (1913 and 1917), this is truly a kind of “collision” – a clash of tradition seen through the eyes of modernists (Busoni), and modernity seen through the eyes of an “old fashioned” opera composer. Many writers point out that Gianni Schicchi, along with La Boheme and Tosca, is Puccini’s most successful opera, as well as the most important Italian musical comedy after Verdi’s Falstaff. Although the event itself is already mentioned in Dante’s Divine Comedy, it is pointed out that the author “takes as a basis the daring feat of the titular hero who, through a skillful substitution, leaves the best part of the deceased’s property to himself on someone else’s deathbed” (Josip Andreis). Busoni’s Arlecchino is a parody of various operas, but also opera on the whole as a genre, and fits perfectly into the strange diptych alongside Puccini’s comic masterpiece.

Duration: two and a half hours, with one intermission

Sponsor of the play „Arlecchino”

Partner mediatico / Media sponsor