Giorgio Berrugi

120 years after its very first performance, which took place at Teatro Regio di Torino, La Bohème returns to the tradition-steeped Italian opera house. Staged by Àlex Ollé from La Fura dels Baus. La Bohème is the love story of a young couple, penniless but hopeful. Mimì and Rodolfo, accompanied by Musetta and Marcello, spend much of their existence in joy tinted with jealousy, in the backdrop of vibrant Paris.

With the world première of Il nome della rosa, an opera based on Umberto Eco’s novel commissioned to Francesco Filidei by La Scala and the Paris Opéra, Piermarini’s stage is once again at the centre of the international panorama of contemporary culture. Il nome della rosa, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher, is the composer’s third opera after Giordano Bruno and L’inondation. Taking his cues from Eco’s descriptions of his novel as an ‘opera buffa’, Filidei develops the music with a central symphonic structure as rootstock for a succession of arias and recitativi, nearly closed forms whose substance derives principally from the variation of Gregorian melodies. In conjunction with the La Scala performances, Milano Musica will also dedicate a monographic edition to Filidei.