“La fille du régiment” at Piermarini. And Donizetti played at being French

What a return! Gaetano Donizetti 's "La fille du régiment" (libretto by Jean-François-Alfred Bayard and Jules-Henry Vernoy de Saint-Georges) returns to La Scala for six performances, from Friday until November 7th. The opera, in Laurent Pelly 's celebrated production, premiered in 2007 at London's Covent Garden, then toured to New York, Vienna, and Paris before arriving at the Piermarini.

The leading roles will be played by Juan Diego Flórez (pictured), Julie Fuchs, a soprano renowned for her bel canto repertoire, Pietro Spagnoli as Sulpice, Géraldine Chauvet as the Marchioness of Berkefeld, Pierre Doyen as Hortensius, and Brabra Frittoli, a La Scala audience favorite, will be Duchess Crakentorp. The Chorus of La Scala will be conducted by Alberto Malazzi. Conducting the performance will be Evelino Pidò, who explains: "'La fille du régiment' is not a classic Italian opera, but an opéra comique with which Donizetti sought to adapt to the rules of a typically French genre, based on a lively balance between sung and spoken parts. A balance must be found between bel canto and acting."

The protagonist is a lively young vivandière for the regiment, a subject that had already inspired entertaining Parisian plays and popular comedies, as well as several romance novels. Donizetti nods to the new middle class emerging in Paris: the story of the orphan of aristocratic origins who escapes an unhappy arranged marriage strikes a chord with the Orléanist bourgeoisie, which remained in power in France until the Third Republic, particularly sensitive to it. The regiment takes in the orphan, emphasizing the value of integration and social harmony, typical of a class that protects the lower classes and promotes the advancement of the individual; in contrast to the nobility, a rigid society defeated by the 1830 revolution.

Laurent Pelly sets the opera during the First World War, bringing the entire story, originally set in Tyrol in 1805, to the twentieth century. Evelino Pidç had already conducted another Donizetti masterpiece, "Don Pasquale," at La Scala, also written during the author's stay in Paris. Pelly's "La fille du régiment" is directed by Christian Rath, with sets by Chantal Thomas and choreography by Laura Scozzi.