Giuseppe Verdi

Luisa Miller

  • Opera in Three ActsI
  • Premiere: 29. 2. 2020
Buy tickets

Luisa Miller (1849) was first staged in the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. While the works created by Verdi before this particular piece were regarded as much simpler, at least from the point of view of the motivation and emotions conveyed by their central characters, the composer’s further opus reveals his determination to build an entirely new and more complex world. In addition to Shakespeare, Schiller was undoubtedly Verdi's literary favourite, as the composer emphasised in his works the dignity of the human soul, thus exposing an unbelievable range of contents - from romantically stirred up to somewhat deeper philosophical reflections. What particularly drew the composer to Schiller’s dramatic source material, after which Cammarano wrote his libretto, was the story filled with passion, as well as the inevitability, with which the main protagonists are heading towards their tragic end – the fatal consequence of the family tragedies, intertwined with the determination and shaped by political and social life. The psychologically pervasive and multifaceted characters – above all Luisa, who is trapped into a political plot and Rodolfo, who is unable to accept her decision to marry another man, as well as the fact that the lovers failed to see the game of intrigue in time, were more than just a good foundation for revealing Verdi's talent for beautiful lyrical lines and refined orchestration. Although the composer's later operas slightly overshadowed Luisa Miller, it nevertheless managed to remain on the repertoires of the opera theatres around the world. The work, filled with beauty and nobility, always defied the tastes of fashion, and especially the famous Rudolph's aria Quando le sere al placido has been historically recognized as one of the pearls of the classical tenor repertoire.

Returning to Ljubljana after quite a few years is the renowned stage director Lutz Hochstraate who has staged our theatre La traviata that has been performed on our stage for many years. This time our conductor's podium is reserved for the Czech conductor David Švec.

Text: Tatjana Ažman