On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of Giacomo Puccini, the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago presents an exclusive screening of the Italian opera La bohème, presented at Teatro alla Scala in Milano during the 2022/2023 lyric season.
On the centennial of the birth of Franco Zeffirelli, to whom the Museo Teatrale dedicated an exhibition, Teatro alla Scala again proposed his classic production of La bohème, a piece of history of the theatre staged for the first time in 1963 with Karajan conducting and since then reprised regularly, now a vital element in the identity of Teatro alla Scala. Wielding the baton will be Eun Sum Kim, the youthful permanent conductor of the San Francisco Opera, while Marina Rebeka sings as Mimì alongside Freddie De Tommaso as Rodolfo.
Opera in four acts
Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa
Season: 2022/2023
Duration: 2 hours, no intermissions
Teatro alla Scala Production
Teatro alla Scala Orchestra and Chorus
Treble Voices Chorus of the Teatro alla Scala Academy
The screening will be preceded by an historical introduction by prof. Roger Pines, Voice and Opera faculty at Northwestern University.
Free with registration. Doors open at 5:30pm CT.
Please register each participant individually, using the form on this page.
Conductor: Eun Sun Kim
Staging and sets: Franco Zeffirelli
Revived by: Marco Gandini
Costumes: Piero Tosi
Lights: Marco Filibeck
CAST
Rodolfo: Freddie De Tommaso
Schaunard: Alessio Arduini
Mimì: Marina Rebeka
Marcello: Luca Micheletti
Colline: Jongmin Park
Musetta: Irina Lungu
Benoît/Alcindoro: Andrea Concetti
Doganiere: Alessandro Senes
Venditore Ambulante: Luigi Albani
Roger Pines’s voice is familiar to opera-lovers nationwide from his annual appearances since 2006 as a panelist on the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts’ “Opera Quiz.” Now in his fifth year as a member of Northwestern University’s Voice and Opera faculty, Roger has previously held positions at San Diego Opera, The Dallas Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and most recently Lyric Opera of Chicago. His thriving freelance career has recently included lecturing for Yale University and the Curtis Institute of Music; writing feature articles for San Francisco Opera, Opera magazine (London), and Das Opernglas magazine (Munich); and co-creating and co-presenting an online series of programs on historically important singers, for which Roger is collaborating with internationally celebrated baritone Thomas Hampson. An audio documentary devoted to American soprano Leontyne Price, which Roger wrote, narrated, and produced, has been aired by many classical-music stations nationwide. His writing has appeared in the programs of every major North American opera company, as well as for CDs on eight major recording labels. He has also judged for many important vocal competitions, most prominently the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (now the Laffont Competition), with which he has been associated for more than three decades.
The practice of opera singing in Italy was included in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2023. To celebrate this important event, the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago presents a series of initiatives dedicated to Italian opera.
“The practice of opera singing in Italy” was born in Central Italy in the 17th century from the evolution of Italian language and then expanded throughout the peninsula and later abroad, thanks to the emigration of opera singers and theater producers. The practice of lyric singing has historically played a function of social aggregation through the sharing of musical and literary skills and the use of natural or traditionally defined acoustic spaces, in which it is not necessary to use technological instruments of voice reproduction thanks to the power of the voice of opera singers.
For more information, visit the dedicated website for UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage
Reservation no longer available
