The highlight of this year’s Gaulitana: A Festival of Music will undoubtedly be the full-scale production of Puccini’s masterpiece, Tosca – a collaboration between the local festival and the prestigious Taormina Festival.
The opera will be directed by Enrico Castiglione, one of the best known and respected theatre directors and set designers of his generation.
His style is passionately realistic, characterised by a strong visual dimension of evident cinematographic inspiration, with stage sets always hallmarked by spectacular, surprising concepts.
Arguably one of his finest productions was Tosca for the Puccini centennial, transmitted live in European cinemas by Rai Mondovisione.
Castiglione enjoys equally appreciable success in 20th century theatre, most notably his staging of Bernstein’s Mass/Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers at the Vatican in 2000.
Castiglione is the founder and artistic director of various festivals around Europe with one of his most prestigious roles being the appointment as artistic director for the 50 Jubilee concerts commissioned by John Paul II in 2000.
The costumes for this production are designed by Sonia Cammarata. She is known for a personal style, speaking through an aesthetic language extremely sophisticated, yet imaginative while revealing a knack for historical costumes. Since 2003, she has created an extremely intense artistic partnership with Enrico Castiglione, with whom she collaborated on numerous productions. Noteworthy are her costume designs for Nabucco (2011) and Norma (2012), both transmitted worldwide by Rai Mondovisione.
The title role, Tosca, will be played by Norma Fantini, who has been bestowed with the XXXV Award Puccini awarded by the Puccini Festival of Torre del Lago for her outstanding performances of Puccini’s operas.
Piero Giuliacci will interpret Cavaradossi, reviving his Tosca partnership with Fantini from Torre del Lago last summer. Regarded as one of the eminent Italian tenors of his generation, he appears regularly at the grand productions of the Arena di Verona.
Emerging baritone Francesco Landolfi will be playing Scarpia. The winner of numerous international singing competitions, he has to his credit several performances in prestigious venues, with Scarpia being a recurring role.
The Malta Philharmonic Orchestra and the Gaulitanus Choir, under the direction of Colin Attard, will also be taking part.
Tosca will be staged on April 12 at the Aurora Theatre, Victoria. Tickets are available by calling 9920 9779 or 9924 8963, by sending an e-mail to info@gaulitanus.com, from the Aurora Box Office or online.
www.teatruaurora.com; www.gaulitanus.com