FULL LE WILLIS or LE VILLI Torre del Lago 2024 Lidia Fridman, Vincenzo Costanzo, Giuseppe De Luca
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Le Willis or Le Villi
- Composer: Puccini Giacomo
- Libretto: Ferdinando Fontana Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: GRAN TEATRO ALL’APERTO GIACOMO PUCCINI, Torre del Lago, Italy
- Recorded: July 12, 2024
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Lidia Fridman, Vincenzo Costanzo, Giuseppe De Luca
- Conductor: Massimo Zanetti
- Orchestra: ORCHESTRA DEL FESTIVAL PUCCINI
- Chorus: CORO DEL FESTIVAL PUCCINI, Coro delle Voci Bianche del Festival Puccini
- Chorus Master: Roberto Ardigò, Viviana Apicella
- Choreographer: Gheorghe Iancu
- Stage Director: Pier Luigi Pizzi
- Stage Designer: Pier Luigi Pizzi
- Costume Designer: Pier Luigi Pizzi
- Lighting Designer: Massimo Gasparon
Information about the Recording
- Published by: RAI
- Date Published: 2024
- Format: Broadcast
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, itsubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Le Villi (The Willis or The Fairies) is an opera–ballet in two acts (originally one) composed by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Ferdinando Fontana, based on the short story “Les Willis” by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. Karr’s story was in turn based in the Central European legend of the Vila, also used in the ballet Giselle. The opera, in its original one-act version, premiered at Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme, on 31 May 1884.
A performance typically lasts 64 minutes.
Synopsis
Place: The Black Forest
Time: Indeterminate
Act 1
Family and guests dance at a celebration of the engagement in marriage of Roberto and Anna. Roberto must leave before the ceremony to collect an inheritance, and Anna worries that she will never see him again (Aria: Se come voi piccina). Roberto comforts Anna telling her that it will be fine and they will marry when he returns from Mainz. Anna tells Roberto of her dreams of him dying but Roberto tells Anna that she should not worry about his love failing and that she may doubt her God but not his love for her. The crowd returns and Anna is still worried about Roberto leaving. Roberto then asks Guglielmo, Anna’s father, to bless them before his journey and Roberto sets off for Mainz.
Intermezzo
Roberto is enchanted by a siren, and forgets Anna. Anna waits through the summer and the autumn and in the winter dies in his absence. The legend of the fairies (Le Villi) is then explained. When a woman dies of a broken heart, the fairies force the heart breaker to dance until death.
Act 2
Winter
Anna’s father, Guglielmo, holds Roberto responsible for Anna’s death and calls upon the Villi to take vengeance on Roberto (Aria: Anima santa della figlia mia). The Villi call upon the ghost of Anna and lure Roberto into the forest. Roberto, now penniless and abandoned by the seductress, returns when news of Anna’s death reaches him. He hopes for forgiveness, but the Villi stalk him as he mourns the loss of the days of his youth (Aria: Torna ai felici dì). Roberto then finds the one last flower left alive in the winter and tries to find hope that Anna lives but is repelled by the Villi when he tries to knock on the door of Guglielmo’s house. Roberto then tries to pray for forgiveness but finds he cannot because of the curse put upon him by the Villi. As Roberto curses his fate Anna appears to him and tells him of the suffering that she had to endure. Roberto begs for forgiveness and he too feels the pain of Anna burning in his heart. But Roberto is not forgiven and Anna calls upon the Villi, who curse Roberto with cries of “traitor.” There, the Villi and Anna dance with Roberto until he dies of exhaustion at Anna’s feet.