The Teatro Regio di Parma for OperaVision
In the three-year period 2022-2024, OperaVision – the freeview opera streaming platform supported by the European Union's Creative Europe programme – will offer a rich program of live streaming and on demand operas from over 30 theatres in 16 countries.
The Teatro Regio di Parma joins the project with one opera per year, starting with Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by Kurt Weill, that is streamed on April 30 (at 20h00 CET) and will be available for three months, until July 30 (at 12h00 CET).
It is a new production by Teatro Regio di Parma in co-production with I Teatri di Reggio Emilia on occasion of Parma Italian Capital of Culture 2020+21.
A testament to the fertile but fraught collaboration between composer Kurt Weill and man of theatre Bertolt Brecht, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny) is one of the great operas of the 20th century. As we read in the OperaVision introduction, it is “a work with rich melody and unstoppable dramatic momentum” that carries us “to hell and beyond” in Mahagonny, an (imaginary) American city founded in the desert by three criminals on the run from the police and absolutely devoted to pleasure.
In the authors' view, the story of a city where everything is allowed thanks to money is an opportunity to denounce the degeneration of the society of the time, but it has also become an anticipation of the 21st century consumer and hard-hearted society.
The opera is sung in German. Subtitles are available in English, Italian and German with the option of auto-translation into over 100 other languages.
Extra in-depth content are also available, with interviews to: conductor Christopher Franklin, director Henning Brockhaus, choreographer Valentina Escobar, Chorus Master Martino Faggiani, set designer Margherita Palli, besides a video-synopsis and a ‘Behind the scenes’ with the setting in Parma.