Alessandro Zummo

The aesthetic of the staging follows Igor’s downward spiral from the sacredness of the gold to the humiliation of the tarmac.

Warlikowski manages to give a coherent interpretation of this masterpiece, which resonates with a contemporary audience without distorting Verdi’s ideas.

Does this approach work for this opera? Yes and no: it succeeds in suggesting the idea of ​​Japan, it forces the spectator to focus on music and drama without frills and it is very elegant, a rather minimalistic Japanese inspired style.

The conductor Riccardo Frizza didn’t’ help to warm up the atmosphere: he conducted correctly and paid extreme attention not to cover the voices, but not much passion was coming out from the orchestra pit.

This is a visually stunning work executed nearly to perfection. It brought new interpretative ideas to an opera often performed in stale productions. Not to be missed.