Organization

Conductor

Juraj Valčuha

Stage director

Claus Guth

Set designer

Etienne Pluss

Costume designer

Petra Reinhardt

Lighting designer

Olaf Freese

Video designer

Roland Horvath

Dramaturge

Yvonne Gebauer

Chorus master

José Luis Basso

Singer

Bass

Michele Pertusi

Philip II

Tenor

Matthew Polenzani

Don Carlo

Baritone

Ludovic Tézier

Rodrigo

Ernesto Petti

Alexander Tsymbalyuk

The Grand Inquisitor

Giorgi Manoshvili

A Monk

Soprano

Ailyn Pérez

Elisabeth of Valois

Mezzo-soprano

Elīna Garanča

Princess Eboli

Cassandre Berthon

Thibault

Luigi Strazzullo

The Count of Lerma

Massimo Sirigu

Royal Herald

Maria Sardaryan

A Voice from Heaven

Takaki Kurihara

Primo deputato

Lorenzo Mazzucchelli

Secondo deputato

Giuseppe Todisco

Terzo deputato

Giovanni Impagliazzo

Quinto deputato

Rocco Cavalluzzi

Sesto deputato

Teatro di San Carlo

Others

Coro del Teatro di San Carlo

Orchestra

Orchestra del Teatro di San Carlo

Ignas Melnikas

Quarto deputato

Italian

Don Carlo (Italian version)

Naples

Italy

The Teatro San Carlo in Naples opens its 2022-23 artistic season by presenting the full five-act version of Verdi’s Don Carlo, which last played there in 1872! Also called the Italian version (as the original libretto, Don Carlos, was in French), this revision was for a long time the most commonly played, until some interpreters of Verdi—notably Abbado in 1977—chose to restore the original score.

In this production, Matthew Polenzani performs an elegant and melancholic Don Carlo, suffering in his impossible love for his stepmother Elisabetta (an excellent Ailyn Perez), the princess of France. The king’s Filippo II, played by the great Michele Pertusi, represents tyrannical monarchy and opposes the revolutionary stirrings of the marquis Rodrigo, performed by award-winning baritone Ludovic Tézier. The sublime Elīna Garanča, for her part, after her recent resounding successes in Carmen and Cavalleria rusticana, returns to the stage of the Teatro San Carlo as the jealous princess Eboli, while Alexander Tsymbalyuk, as the Great Inquisitor, evokes the dark shadow of the Catholic Church’s tribunals.

This titanic grand opéra à la française, including dance sequences and majestic choral scenes, displays a much more European taste than Verdi’s usual fare, owing in part to the libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based in turn on the tragedy of the same name by Schiller. The work’s striking modernity can be felt in the subtle introspective analysis of the characters, wavering between public duty and personal pleasure, reflected by a dynamic and relentless action. Juraj Valčuha’s orchestra and Claus Guth’s direction, in his first appearance at San Carlo, lead the ensemble in this superb staging, enhanced even further by Petra Reinhardt’s costumes and Etienne Pluss’s set design.

Elīna Garanča appears courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon.

Slovak conductor Juraj Valčuha presides over an all-star cast in this performance of Verdi's dark middle-period masterpiece Don Carlo – presented in the five-act Italian version – from Naples's fabled Teatro San Carlo. American tenor Matthew Polenzani sings Don Carlo, torn apart by his love for Elisabetta (Aylin Pérez), whom fate forces into a loveless marriage with Carlo's father, King Phillip II. Two of today's greatest singers complete the cast: Elīna Garanča as the beautiful Princess Eboli, and Ludovic Tézier as Carlo's friend Rodrigo. Claus Guth's psychologically astute direction explores the torments, passions and sense of duty that drive the drama in this powerful performance of one of the grandest of all grand operas.

Don Carlo (Italian version) Verdi

Public

English

Approved

Production booklet

Further reading