La sonnambula

Bel canto in the spirit of ballet blanc

If there is one title that occupies a unique place in Barcelona’s nearly two centuries of operatic history, it is unquestionably Bellini’s La sonnambula. Its Barcelona premiere, at the Teatre de la Santa Creu, went down in history as veritable apotheosis, an unqualified success, which was repeated when it came to the Gran Teatre del Liceu. An opera season without this masterpiece of bel canto was virtually unthinkable. Its unwittingly Freudian fascination with the loss of consciousness and its implicit fondness for the dreamlike create a truly Romantic ecstasy comparable to the ballets blancs then fashionable in imperial courts: Amina’s emotional fragility is on a par with Giselle’s. Marco Arturo Marelli’s production is perfectly in tune with the notion of semi-serious opera, striking a delicate balance between humour and Romantic pathos.  

Opera semiseria in two acts. Libretto by Felice Romani based on La Somnambule by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne and  La Somnambule ou L’arrivée d’un nouveau seigneur by Eugène Scribe and Pierre Aumer. Music by Vincenzo Bellini. Premiered on 6 March 1831 at the Teatro Carcano in Milan. First Barcelona performance at the Teatre de la Santa Creu on 21 April 1836. First staged at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on 5 August 1848. Most recent performance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu: 29 January 1987.

Conductor
Daniel Oren

Stage direction
Marco Arturo Marelli

Scenography and Lighting
Marco Arturo Marelli

Costume
Dagmar Niefind

Co-production
Wiener Staatsoper (Viena) / Royal Opera House Covent Garden (London)

Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of the Gran Teatre del Liceu

CAST

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