Adriana Lecouvreur Met 2019 Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala, Anita Rachvelishvili, Ambrogio Maestri
In this video
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ADRIANA LECOUVREUR by Francesco Cilea
Metropolitan Opera, New York
January 12, 2019
CAST
Adriana: Anna NETREBKO
Mauriziop: Piotr BECZALA,
Princess de Bouillon: Anita RACHVELISHVILI
Michonnet: Ambrogio MAESTRI
Prince of Bouillon: Maurizio Muraro
Abbé: Carlo BOSI
Conductor: Gianandrea NOSEDA
Director: David MCVICAR
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Adriana Lecouvreur (Italian pronunciation: [adriˈaːna lekuˈvrør, -ɛr]) is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the 1849 play Adrienne Lecouvreur by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé. It was first performed on 6 November 1902 at the Teatro Lirico in Milan.
The same play by Scribe and Legouvé which served as a basis for Cilea’s librettist was also used by at least three different librettists for operas carrying exactly the same name, Adriana Lecouvreur, and created by three different composers. The first was an opera in three acts by Tomaso Benvenuti (premiered in Milan in 1857). The next two were lyric dramas in 4 acts by Edoardo Vera (to a libretto by Achille de Lauzières) which premiered in Lisbon in 1858, and by Ettore Perosio (to a libretto by his father), premiered in Genoa in 1889. After Cilea created his own Adriana, however, none of those by others were performed anymore and they remain largely unknown today.
The opera is based on the life of the French actress Adrienne Lecouvreur (1692–1730). While there are some actual historical figures in the opera, the episode it recounts is largely fictional; its death-by-poisoned-violets plot device is often signalled as verismo opera’s least realistic.[4] It is often condemned as being among the most confusing texts ever written for the stage, and cuts that have often been made in performance only make the story harder to follow.[citation needed] The running time of a typical modern performance is about 135 minutes (excluding intervals).
Synopsis
Place: Paris, France Time: 1730
Act 1
Backstage at the Comédie-Française
The company is preparing for a performance and bustling around Michonnet, the stage manager. The Prince de Bouillon, admirer and patron of the actress Duclos, is also seen backstage with his companion, the Abbé. Adriana enters, reciting, and replies to the others’ praise with ‘Io son l’umile ancella’ (“I am the humble servant of the creative spirit”). Left alone with Adriana, Michonnet wants to express his love for her. However, Adriana explains that she already has a lover: Maurizio, a soldier of the Count of Saxony. Maurizio enters and declares his love for Adriana, ‘La dolcissima effigie.’ They agree to meet that night, and Adriana gives him some violets to put in his buttonhole. The Prince and the Abbé return. They have intercepted a letter from Duclos, in which she requests a meeting with Maurizio later that evening at the Prince’s villa. The Prince, hoping to expose the tryst, decides to invite the entire troupe there after the performance. On receiving Duclos’s letter, Maurizio cancels his appointment with Adriana, who in turn opts to join the Prince’s party.
Act 2
A villa by the Seine
The Princess de Bouillon, not the actress Duclos (who was only acting as her proxy), is anxiously waiting for Maurizio (“Acerba voluttà, dolce tortura”). When Maurizio enters, she sees the violets and asks how he came by them. Maurizio presents them to her, but confesses that he no longer loves her. She deduces that he loves someone else, but soon she’s forced to hide when the Prince and the Abbé suddenly arrive. Maurizio realizes that they think he is with Duclos. Adriana enters and learns that Maurizio isn’t a soldier at all, but the disguised Count of Saxony himself. He tells Adriana the assignation was political, and that they must arrange the escape of a woman who is in