Sunday 27, July - 20h - Opéra Comédie

Salustia
Giovanni Battista Pergolèse

 

Coproduction
Festival Radio France et Montpellier Languedoc Roussillon
Fondazione pergolesi Pontini
Opéra National de Montpellier Languedoc Roussillon

With the support of the Fondation Aria

With the support of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura de Marseille & Consolato Generale italiano de Marseille

Festival Lectures - Salustia - Jean-Paul Scarpitta
26/07/08 - 11am - Salle Einstein/ Le Corum - Free Entrance

Salustia, reassuring clarity

Salustia loves immoderately. She seems to seek all her memory, refinement and imagination before destiny and, in particular, before her role as the wife of Emperor Alessandro. She never judges, always understands, sometimes marvels. She is, in a way, clairvoyance, equanimity, the gift of tears, generosity, devotion, sacrifice, silence, courage unto death. Her determination is to grab hold of all these regrets, remorse and questions together.
A staging that takes inspiration from the heart’s expressions, a staging that must delight it in order to recreate the light of a presence such as one encounters so rarely in life and give thanks for it.
Getting to know someone is an immense task, so limited. Acts, words and silences can be related, interpreted… thoughts are inaccessible. What is most important is not what Salustia thinks but what she offers as food for thought.
To know her is to love her, of course, but also to love oneself with a humanity capable of so much goodness—goodness often put to the test throughout the opera in an almost-enigmatic Rome, filled with vanity, power and duplicity.
History, as all women know, remains the official privilege of men. To slip into its machinery without being crushed, it is necessary to feign, use cunning, create powerful allies, distribute favours, seduce, corrupt, punish and know when it is time to leave the stage. In that, Salustia is a woman of today. These days, is ignorance not on the rise? Is vulgarity not pervasive? Everything presupposes the void, masculine weakness… males are at their lowest ebb, their animal baseness coming to the surface.
Is Salustia a victory? Yes, for there is no calculating with her—only thought counts. She tells us to neither deny nor reject what we are: thinking beings…
Round her the other characters come to life and confront one another: Empress Giulia, Albina, Claudio and his father, Marziano. They are all strong characters and sometimes slaves to appearance, conformism or their ego, but they are not inanimate. The plot is created before our eyes, revealing the ambiguity of what we are.
This is the first opera Pergolesi composed. We are guided by its powerfully expressive music, heralding beautiful moments, the music of a very young man who expresses poetry that thinks and unfolds... a way of keeping one’s thinking alert.

Jean-Paul Scarpitta

Broadcast France Musique - 28/07/08 - Live & UER

Mezzo will record Salustia, With the support of Karl More Production & Benjamin Bleton. Broadcast le 6/09/08 - 8:30pm, 19/09/08 - 10am & 28/09/08 5pm.