Organization

Singer

Soprano

Angela Meade

Norma

Carmela Remigio

Adalgisa

Tenor

Stefan Pop

Pollione

Bass

Michele Pertusi

Oroveso

Mariangela Marini

Clotilde

John Matthew Myers

Flavio

Stage director

Nicola Berloffa

Conductor

Sesto Quatrini

Lighting designer

Marco Giusti

Costume designer

Valeria Donata Bettella

Set designer

Andrea Belli

Chorus master

Martino Faggiani

Giorgio Valerio

Fondazione Teatri di Piacenza

Teatro Comunale di Modena

Others

Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma

Orchestra

Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana

Teatro Regio di Parma

Parma

Italy

Teatro Regio

Norma Bellini

Public

Approved

Norma - Intervista integrale a Sesto Quatrini

Direction notes
Norma is one of the works that have shaped the Western artistic world, among the ten largest in the entire repertoire, both for the value that lies above all in the melodic richness and dramatic strength and for the extraordinary expressive novelties. The public loves Norma and has high expectations when they witness a new staging, conditioned by legendary productions that have helped to magnify the fortune of this Bellinian masterpiece.
However, the score presents such richness on a musical and scenic level, and offers so many possible interpretations, as to exclude a univocal reading: whatever that choice, Theater and Music must support and reinforce each other. In Norma the historical context of the plot is rather incidental. Take Tosca for example: without a Roman setting, part of its essence and, in any case, most of the idiomatic nuances are lost. This is not the case for Norma: here some references to specific places or certain times are negligible: the events narrated are rather a frame in which subjective emotions and dramaturgical relationships between the protagonists are grafted.
In any work, the story can be told on two levels: the first is the director's reading, and the second is the music - especially the voice in this case. Norma's score is a huge mirror of the most intimate subjective emotions of the characters, a typical characteristic of Belcanto. Singers can use the projection of particular voices, yarns, voices, diminuendo, very long dramatic pauses as tools to communicate the psychology of the characters. Norma, first performed in Milan in 1831, is a typical bel canto opera and this requires a specific approach on the part of the singers and the conductor. What is Belcanto really? For many this term identifies the Opera of a certain period, which goes from Rossini to the young Verdi through Bellini and Donizetti. In my opinion Belcanto is much more: a certain way of singing, of dealing with the orchestra, of approaching the drama, through archetypal forms: a style that involves specific technical, poetic and musical aspects. The constant and desperate care of the text and words and their theatrical and metateatral meanings. Precisely for this reason a decisive element in Belcanto and more specifically in Norma are the silences, often long and deafening. The score is full of pauses without cadences, to be bravely faced, which produce sensations of cosmic emptiness. Precisely for this reason a decisive element in Belcanto and more specifically in Norma are the silences, often long and deafening. The score is full of pauses without cadences, to be bravely faced, which produce sensations of cosmic emptiness. Precisely for this reason a decisive element in Belcanto and more specifically in Norma are the silences, often long and deafening. The score is full of pauses without cadences, to be bravely faced, which produce sensations of cosmic emptiness.
We must enjoy the silences, and leave the possibility, to the public and to ourselves, to actively exploit these moments of pause: they come from the body and spirit of the characters. They are music.

Sesto Quatrini 

A timeless story - Director's notes

This staging finally arrives in Italy after a European tour. This is not a recovery, but a readjustment due to the health rules imposed by the Covid emergency: the show was, in fact, rebuilt respecting the rules on distancing.
The central idea remains, however, the original one. Against the backdrop of a continuing war, we observe the debris of a won and conquered society. We find the defeated Gauls living in seclusion in a burned and devastated 19th century palace, the last vestiges of a lost power. No bearded druids, but old generals and soldiers attack Norma with the few remaining forces, trying to extract from her the signal for a longed-for and painful new Revolution.
In this adaptation the action of the drama has shifted towards a European nineteenth century, in the period of the great struggles and internal revolutions that marked the nineteenth century, while perfectly respecting the dynamics of conflict between winners and losers, amorous delusions and uterine jealousies. of the heroines of Bellini. We could be in Solferino or Paris at the time of the Prussian war. We will see Norma fall, from "woman of the people" to the new designated victim, because in the arc of the story
the priestess passes from a darling to a traitor with an absolutely modern and martial logic: no trial awaits her, only a condemnation shouted from the square with a relative violent execution. The themes suggested by the libretto could lead us to an easy updating, but this is not necessary because Bellini's musical writing manages in a modern way to make us discover characters who, once freed from the parade numbers, experience human feelings. Which are the same as we feel today.

Nicola Berloffa

English

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