RITA

One-act chamber opera
Libretto Gustavo Vaëz

PREMIERE – October 1, 2010

Conductor Vladimir Kranjcevic
Director Stefan Sablic
Set designer Aleksandar Denic
Costume designer Zora Mojsilovic Popovic
Lightning designer Srdjan Jovanovic

CAST

Rita Sanja Kerkez, Sofia Pižurica
Beppe Saša Štulic, Goran Strgar
Gasparo Vladimir Andric, Nenad Nenic

Madlenianum Opera and Theatre Orchestra
Concert master Balint Varga
Stage manager Vesna Curcic Petrovic

Opera Rita was completed in1841 but was performed posthumously in Paris, in 1860. In our times it meets with a renaisance, and is warmly received especially after the first night at the Milan Scala in 1965, and it also had a very successful production in Lion in 2009. Due to its modest dimensions, chamber qualities, a small number of performers and eternally current topic, it is much sought after at a large number of the world stages. Rita is an energetic, but also a despotic woman who abuses her timid and withdrawn husband Beppe. Their marriage might even have succeded if Rita’s first husband Gasparo whom everybody believed to have been dead, had not appeared. In reality, Gaspar had run away to Canada where he had been in hiding from her. He returned with the greatest wish to divorce her and annul his marital contract with Rita, so that he could remarry. In the unexpected appearance of Gaspar, Beppe sees a solution to his own problems, feeling that it is a good oportunity to get rid of Rita who goes on tormenting him. The two husbands, the ex and the current, make a deal in order to outsmart the evil woman and take a revenge on her. Witty solutions, cool humor, numerous duets, trios, Rita’s arias, comical turns, exceptionally pleasing melody, not very pretentious orchestra are all together the witnesses of the best elements of Donizetti’s language and style. 

Gaetano Donizetti