Opera & Ballet

Everyone knows Summertime, but few know that it is one of the wonderful songs of this “folk opera” with which Gershwin ended prematurely his career. Aspects of jazz, spirituals, musicals and theatre are the ingredients of the greatest American opera of the twentieth century, an authentic cross-section of Afro-American life.

The phenomenon of sleepwalking and insanity in general is, in opera, a way to exalt vocal virtuosity. Bellini excels in radiating with his lyric style the tender and hard-won love between the protagonists, whom he entrusts with enchanting music.

Love and jealousy raised to the highest power by the music of Pietro Mascagni, who in 1890 began his career unexpectedly by winning the Sonzogno composers’ competition, being acclaimed as the “new Italian maestro”, after Verdi, thanks to this opera, based on a story by Verga.