The Perfect American at Teatro Real, Madrid 2013

Music by Philip Glass (1937)
Libretto by Rudy Wurlitzer, based on the novel Der König von Amerika by Peter Stephan Jungk

Accused of racism and antisemitism, Walter Elias Disney (1901-1966) was the creator of the world’s largest animation studio, whose films have achieved universal fame.

The creatures of the Disney factory are animals which are systematically anthropomorphised, their human dimension contributed decisively to the image of the anodyne ‘American Dream’ in the interwar period.

Philip Glass has composed 24 operas and is one of the creators of American minimalism, together with La Monte Young, Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Over time, he gradually distanced himself from this aesthetic in search of simpler writing and a less complex form. The pulsing music of Glass, with its strong and insistent rhythms, has obvious correlations to rock and pop.

The encounter between Glass and Disney seemed inevitable: both are American creators who represent the best of their respective aesthetics.

Genre: Opera
Director: Philip Glass
Duration: 111 min
Format: HD

The Indian Queen at Teatro Real, Madrid 2013

Music by Henry Purcell
Libretto by John Dryden

The Pittsburgh-born stage director presents at the Teatro Real his version of the Henry Purcell score with texts from the novel La niña blanca y los pájaros sin pies (The White Girl and the Birds without Feet) by the Nicaraguan writer Rosario Aguilar, and songs and hymns by Purcell with texts by Katherine Phillips, George Herbert, and other authors.

The production, with colourful set designing by Gronk and conducted by Teodor Currentzis leading his ensemble MusicAeterna, gives a voice to the women, both indigenous and colonisers, who were part of the Conquest of the Americas yet never appear in the chronicles and official accounts of the era.

Sellars skilfully adapts the evocative, allegorical world of magic described by the English composer as the perfect framework in which to give full rein to the deepest and most obscure human emotions, all from the female viewpoint which was always ignored.

Genre: Semi-opera in five acts and a prologue
Conductor : Henry Purcell
Duration: 195′
Format: HD

Parsifal at Teatro Real, Madrid 2016

Music and libretto by Richard Wagner, based on the medieval epic poem Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach.

The première of Parsifal in major opera houses was not until 1914, after the Bayreuth Festival had maintained the exclusivity of the opera since its opening in 1882. It was a huge success, in part because the opera score was to become one of the most momumental and inspiring scores in music history. As well, its turbulent theme was associated with the Great War and post-war era.
Parsifal arrives after years of wanderings through the wilderness to save the Temple of the Grail, encapsulating the emotional climate in Europe at the time, a period of great sacrifice and hardship, collective disorientation and the desperate search for a leader.

Parsifal, the innocent, compassionate “guileless fool”, embodies the spirit of redemption.
This is the starting point for the staging by German director Claus Guth.

The action takes place in a dilapidated hospital for war-wounded soldiers. Inspired by the sanatorium in The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, it embodies the trauma and despair following World War I, when hopes for a new leader led to disaster.

Genre: Sacred stage festival in three acts
Director : Richard Wagner
Conductor : 260′
Format: HD

La Traviata at Teatro Real, Madrid 2015

Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the novel and theatre play La dame aux camélias (1848 and 1852) by Alexandre Dumas fils

After its initial rejection, Verdi’s unique opera whose action unfolds in a contemporary setting, La Traviata became one of the most acclaimed works of the composer. This came about because of the universal values that are brought to light following the tragedy of a high-society courtesan who renounces even life itself to protect the honour of her lover, demonstrating a grandeur lacking in the hypocritical bourgeois society that abused and then rejected her.

The story brought Verdi legendary status through music with a profound sense of humanity and psychological portrayal of the characters and their feelings.
Stage conductor David McVicar, uses his usual elegance to set the drama in a world of romantic references while retaining an up-to-date perspective.

Genre: Opera in three acts
Conductor : Guiseppe Verdi
Duration: 132′
Format: HD

IOLANTA -PERSEPHONE at Teatro Real, Madrid 2012

Music by Piotr Ilich Chaikovski (1840-1893)
Libretto by Modest Chaikovski, based on King René’s Daughter by Henrik Hertz.

An extraordinary double programme with two works which “represent an ideal of beauty, poetry and hope”. Iolanta and Perséphone tell stories of transformation; two dramas laden with symbolism which take a path from light to darkness and back again, where there is always a shadow of one’s self behind each person. Peter Sellars tells the story using a single setting with very intense, abstract visual images where everything changes, as in Russian symbolist drama.

Genre: Lyrical opera in one act
Conductor : Piotr Ilich Chaikovski
Duration: 164′
Format: HD
Languages : Russian

Il Pirata at Teatro Real, Madrid 2019

Music by Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835)
Libretto by Felice Romani, based on the work Bertram, Ou le Pirate (1822) by Justin Séverin Taylor, translated to French by Charles Maturin

It is the story of a young man daring, rebelling against oppression and injustice, but condemned to suffer an amorous misadventure; his beloved, married by obligation to his enemy, with whom she also has a child. The enemy in question, the embodiment of the most despotic power.

Conductor Bellini deliberately looked for an innovative style of composition and made a special effort to obtain an intimate correspondence between the music and the text. The Pirate will be the trampoline from which Bellini would achieve international success and become Maestro de Bel Canto.

Genre: Opera Melodramma in two acts
Conductor : Vincenzo Bellini
Duration: 158′
Format: HD