AROLDO

In a new production to be broadcast online on Friday 27 August 2021,
OperaStreaming presents Verdi’s rarely-performed Aroldo from the Teatro Galli,
Rimini, where it first premiered at the inauguration of the Teatro Galli on 16 August 1857.

A tale of adultery, honour and reconciliation, Aroldo the only opera by Verdi to have made
its debut in the composer’s native Emilia-Romagna region, and the only opera written
expressly for the inauguration of a new theatre in Italy. Following extensive damage during

the Second World War, the impressive Teatro Galli has recently been restored to its
original splendour and reopened in 2018 after 75 years closed.

Verdi’s Aroldo was reworked extensively from his unsuccessful 1850 work Stiffelio, with
three acts turned into four, and the action transported to 13th-century Scotland to avoid
problems with the censors around the religious theme. The new setting sees the Saxon
knight Aroldo return from the Crusades to find his wife Mina distraught and preparing to
confess her adultery with Godvino; the principal characters of Aroldo soon find themselves
embroiled in dramatic duels of honour and thorny matters of repentance and forgiveness.
The opera is rarely performed today, with only a handful of productions since 2000.

The new production of Aroldo by directors Emilio Sala and Edoardo Sanchi complements
Verdi’s adulterous tale with the story of Rimini and its theatre, an open wound in the heart
of the city until the 1995 display of the original theatre curtain – depicting Julius Caesar
crossing the ancient Rubicone river in Rimini, and retrieved from the theatre’s rubble in
1943 – united the city in desire to see the whole theatre restored.

Emilio Sala said:
“The starting point for our production is the “dramaturgy of forgiveness” which – in a rare
case – lies at the basis of Verdi’s musical project, a dramaturgy which, in the same year
(1857), had already been experimented by the great composer in Simon Boccanegra,
although with a tragic outcome: Fiesco and Simone reconcile but the latter dies of
poisoning. In Aroldo, on the other hand, the final forgiveness opens up a cathartic space
– albeit a very fragile one – full of expectations and hope.”

Noted Verdi tenor Antonio Corianò takes the title role opposite the young Russian rising
star soprano Lidia Fridman as his wife Mina, with Michele Govi as Mina’s father Egberto.
Renowned Rimini-born conductor Manlio Benzi returns to the city to conduct the young
Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini in a performance that also includes Adriano
Gramigni as Briano and Cristiano Olivieri as Godvino.