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PIECZONKA STARS IN VERDI’S ABIDING LOVE STORY
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Verdi’s love story of politics and betrayal is set in the American south of the 1960s.
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omposed immediately following his hugely successful operas Rigoletto, La Traviata, and Il Trovatore, Verdi’s Ballo requires artists who can mine Wagnerian reserves of musical power and sensitivity. We have them
in Canada’s great diva Adrianne Pieczonka and the tenor Dimitri Pittas who both return to the COC to take on this tale of forbidden passion between two lovers embroiled in political intrigue beyond their control.
Not unlike the opera’s plot, political machinations have played a huge role in Ballo’s history from the beginning. Originally forced to change the opera’s setting to Boston from Sweden to quell censors’ fears of reallife assassination plots, Verdi and his opera are proof that his theme of “love in a dangerous time” is both a universal truth and historically fluid. In this same spirit, the acclaimed directorial duo of Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito have revealed a layer of political and historical relevance to the plot by placing this production in the American south of the 1960s, with its undertones of Kennedy-era tensions, assassinations and power plays. Production Sponsor
22 Prelude Magazine