Gattopardo renaissance at the Teatro Massimo

It is the first time that Luchino Visconti's 'Il Gattopardo' lands in an opera house in the recently restored version and with the complete live performance of the score composed by Nino Rota. To opt for one of the most important films in the history of Italian cinema and to dust off the cardinal role of music is now the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, which for the opening evening of the symphonic season engages Maestro Timothy Brock - one of the greatest international experts in the live restitution of film music - here engaged with the Orchestra of the Palermo theatre and the arduous undertaking of musical performance synchronised with the images.

A major undertaking made possible thanks to the discovery of Nino Rota's manuscript score and the original masters of the period recordings, but which also imposed the inescapable separation of the musical segments from the dialogues of the performers to allow an optimal live performance of the soundtrack.

The result obtained in the Great Hall of Palermo's opera temple is a perfect consonance of the performance with the simultaneous screening of Visconti's masterpiece. Particularly noteworthy is the excellent rendering of the large section of the dancing party at Palazzo Gangi: the 'Valzer brillante', the 'Valzer del commiato' and the well-known ballabili enjoy an excellent adherence to the unforgettable images of the Salinas' Sicily.

Nineteenth-century Sicily recounted by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa will also be the focus of the first title of the dance and ballet season. Indeed, the brand new version of 'Swan Lake' by Jean-Sébastien Colau will be set at the time of the 'Leopard'. Specially created for the corps de ballet of the theatre, the choreography by the director of the Sicilian troupe will be on stage from 22 January, and evoking the island of the Salinas, the Falconers and the Sedaras in the famous Tchaikovsky title will be the sets by Francesco Zito and the costumes by Cécile Flamand. Three casts will alternate in the ten performances scheduled for a "Lago" that promises to be of great interest also for the unusual dramaturgical profile given to the story of Odette and Siegfried. Unmissable guests invited to Palermo: Maia Makhateli, étoile of the Dutch National Ballet of Amsterdam and Andrea Sarri, prima ballet dancer of the Paris Opéra.

"The Leopard", Teatro Massimo, Palermo, conductor: Timothy Brock.