Fedora, sister of Tosca? Like Puccini, Umberto Giordano was inspired by a flamboyant heroine of the theatre stage tailor- made by Victorien Sardou for the great Sarah Bernhardt.
These two twinned works also share the same explosive combination of tragic love against a backdrop of totalitarian power. In Saint Petersburg in 1881, Vladimir, fiancé of Princess Fedora Romanova, is assassinated by Loris Ipanov, a suspected anarchist. Drunk with revenge, Fedora pursues the murderer to Paris and denounces him to the imperial police. But Loris reveals to her that his wife was Vladimir’s mistress: victims of a common betrayal, he and Fedora fall in love.
Taking refuge in Gstaad, the couple learns that Ipanov’s relatives back in Russia are suffering reprisals following Fedora’s denunciation. In a final sacrificial gesture, she poisons herself and dies in her lover’s arms. Suspense, passion, twists and turns… This true operatic thriller has been a triumph ever since its 1898 premiere in Milan. In it, Umberto Giordano brings together all Italian art’s most ardent lyricism, whose verismo is adorned with an opulent orchestra.
With scenographer Johannes Leiacker, director Arnaud Bernard retains the plot’s luxurious decorum, from the Petersburg palace to Parisian gold, to the gleaming chic of a hotel lobby inspired by the famous Gstaad Palace. But he also accuses the excessive splendour, juxtaposing it with dark perspectives that reveal the underlying drama. For Fedora Romanova’s Russia is no longer that of the tsars, but of a post- glastnost era, where the secret services know how to use compromise to ruin the reputation of their victims. In 1881, the year of the assassination of Alexander II, Loris Ipanov was seen as a possible anarchist. A century later, under the merciless eye of spy cameras, surveillance has increased, and executive sanction takes a more technological and chilling turn.
From Enrico Caruso to José Carreras, including Plácido Domingo and Mirella Freni, Fedora has often constituted an exceptional showcase for the greatest opera singers. This production will mark the debut of Roberto Alagna and his wife Aleksandra Kurzak in an operatic work at the Grand Théâtre. Alternating with them, Fedora and Loris will be played by two of today’s great Russian voices, Elena Guseva and Najmiddin Mavlyanov. Returning to Place de Neuve after Turandot (2022) and Nabucco (2023), Antonino Fogliani will deliver a fresh lesson in Italianità at the head of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
