DORIAN GRAY

| opera |
Libretto and stage direction by Stefano Simone Pintor


"A maximally expressive play."
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Gilberto Mion, Teatro.it, 21.03.2024

"The collaboration between Franceschini and Pintor
is a masterpiece of extreme topicality"
Silvia Dal Zoppo, MusicPaper.it, 26.03.2024

"That the staging is directed by the librettist himself is then a not inconsiderable strength, since Pintor has the awareness of theatrical timing and the ability to make the most of effective acting, with detailed knowledge of the story and text."
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 Francesco Bertini, Connessi all'Opera, 09.04.2024

Commissioned of the
FONDAZIONE HAYDN DI BOLZANO E TRENTO

DORIAN GRAY

Music Matteo Franceschini
Libretto Stefano Simone Pintor

ARTISTIC TEAM
Musical direction Rossen Gergov
Stage direction Stefano Simone Pintor
Set design Gregorio Zurla
Costume design Alberto Allegretti
Lighting design Fiammetta Baldiserri
Video design Virginio Levrio
Sound design Andrea Cozzo
Assistant direction Veronica Bolognani

Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento

CAST
D.G. Laura Muller
Basil Manuel Nuñez Camelino
Sibyl Giulia Bolcato
Alan Alexandre Baldo
James Ugo Tarquini
Gladys Elena Caccamo
Harry Mathieu Dubroca

Figuranti Adelion Kola, Pietro Lancello, Emma Rebughini, Bekim Spahija, David Thaler
Comparse Sara Celani, Alessandro Merolla, Ludovico Morandi, Matilde Scaparrotti*

*Studenti dell'Accademia di Belle Arti di Macerata

TOUR
The opera has been staged in March 2024 at the Teatro Comunale in Bolzano.

ABSTRACT
Dorian Gray is a young man obsessed by the fear of losing his beauty, the only asset worth living for. Thanks to a spell, he manages to get time to touch only his portrait, allowing his body, despite the passing years, to remain intact. But at what price?

The Portrait of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde's masterpiece novel, a manifesto of decadentism and aestheticism, is the starting point for the last work in the trilogy commissioned by the Haydn Foundation to Euregio composers.

Matteo Franceschini, who is responsible for the music, and Stefano Simone Pintor, who is entrusted with the libretto and direction, amplify Oscar Wilde's reflections on the role of art, on the respectability of the bourgeoisie of the time, and on the double that lives in each of us, to the point of understanding our contemporary society, fragmentary, fluid, and invested by a profound crisis of values.

Although the novel is the product and the mirror of an era - Victorian London in the 19th century - it deals with timeless themes that show all their pressing relevance today: good, evil, love, death, existential angst and interpersonal relationships, the obsession with youth and beauty.

Through an almost cinematographic language, this work emphasises the intertwining of the characters' lives and the influence that each of their actions generates on others. Thanks to a narrative structure articulated in six episodes, the young protagonist is transformed into a mirror in which each secondary character is reflected, a sort of Doppelgänger capable of catalysing their innermost drives and desires.

PRESS ROOM

"Dorian Gray stood out as an enthralling performance with a strong emotional impact; the tight pace and the immediate connection between episodes kept the tension high and did not allow the audience to applaud openly, however, at the conclusion there was no shortage of applause and the hall rewarded both the performers and all the creators of the work with long applause."

Daniele Valersi
L'ape musicale, 19.03.2024 

"[...] A maximally expressive play. [...] Then there is the vigorous and engaging literary reduction by Stefano Simone Pintor, who chooses to maintain Wilde's language, but does not feel compelled to follow him slavishly, elaborating a new and highly original dramaturgy through appropriate and intelligent modifications. [...] Pintor also takes charge of the direction, and he does so with his usual happy propensity for the stage, assembling a compact, whirling performance that never tires during its two good hours without a break. A very right choice, so as not to bend a dramaturgical arc that is always taut until the final resolution."
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4 stars

Gilberto Mion
Teatro.it, 21.03.2024

"The composition, published by Casa Ricordi, is by Matteo Franceschini and Stefano Simone Pintor, already authors of successful contemporary musical theatre works. With this new title, the two artists set themselves the ambitious goal of developing Wilde's reflection on the role of art in our lives, projecting it into contemporary society, in the grip of a profound crisis of values. [...] Here, then, is Franceschini and Pintor's challenge: to create a choral work that is not the portrait of a single individual, called Dorian Gray, but of all those who are reflected in him, from the characters to ourselves. Music, at once physical and impalpable, becomes the ideal instrument to rediscover this immaterial beauty, to be contrasted with the material one. [...] Constant throughout the work is the element of empty frames in which art is mixed with the lives of characters reflecting the excesses, immoderate ambitions and inevitable failures of contemporary society. The wings barely open, revealing scenes divided into six chapters that follow one another on stage with an approach that comes close to a noir series we could easily find on Netflix. Six overlapping stories, with flashbacks and various plots, in a game of illusions and double identities, telling from the point of view of individual characters, the real consequences of extreme behaviour. [...] In an incessant and distressing musical and theatrical crescendo, there is an inevitable involvement aimed at provoking and moving the audience, perhaps the true protagonist of the work. "It is the spectator, and not life, that art truly reflects," Wilde writes in the preface to his Portrait, and so we are literally blinded by the reflection of the audience, of ourselves."

Alessandro Arnoldo
Artesnews.it, 21.03.2024

"[...] refined eclecticism of the libretto [...] Positive notes also from the staging by Pintor himself, who made use of the same directing team with which he had overseen the production of Falcone two years ago in Trento. Gregorio Zurla's sets allow agile and kaleidoscopic scene changes, while Alberto Allegretti's costumes place the setting of the opera in the contemporary world. Fiammetta Baldiserri's lighting design is impressive.The audience present, very interested in the proposal, gave the production a polite success, with a few shy ovations to the opera's composer and librettist."

Martino Pinali
OperaClick.it, 22.03.2024

"[...] The collaboration between Franceschini and Pintor, with which Matthias Lošek bids farewell to the artistic direction of the Haydn Foundation, is a masterpiece of extreme topicality, which for 120 uninterrupted minutes captivates the spectator with absolutely original expressive solutions, and does not cease to shake him with questions close to contemporary sensibility: who then is Dorian Gray?"

Silvia Dal Zoppo
MusicPaper.it, 26.03.2024

"A curtain that closes and one that opens, we said, with the appearance of a new work that convinces and captivates. Dorian Gray, the result of two years of symbiotic work between the composer and the librettist/director, is deep, dark, dramatic, with a cinematic narrative style wrapped in multifaceted sonorities. Everything is restless and ambivalent, a perfect expression of Wilde's tale as well as of our own time, equally harnessed in the restlessness of a society equally harnessed in the restlessness of a society decadent in values, poisoned in dreams, tormented by beauty, anguished in thought and violent in actions."

Monique Ciola
LeSalonMusical.it, 27.03.2024

"The work done by Pintor can be seen in the excellent direction, which also makes the seven singers real actors: Giulia Bolcato (Sibyl), Alexandre Baldo (Alan), Ugo Tarquini (James), Manuel Nuñez Camelino (Basil), Mathieu Dubroca (Harry) and Elena Caccamo (Gladys). Laura Muller plays Dorian Gray with diabolical perfidy. Warm applause for all at the premiere on 16 March 2024."

Luca Benvenuti
Nonsolocinema.it, 22.03.2024

"That the staging is directed by the librettist himself is then a not inconsiderable strength, since Pintor has the awareness of theatrical timing and the ability to make the most of effective acting, with detailed knowledge of the story and text. [...] The good final success, after a two-hour performance attentively followed by the audience, confirms the curiosity aroused by the contemporary repertoire and the successful association between Franceschini and Pintor."
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 - 4 stars and a half

Francesco Bertini 
Connessi all'Opera, 09.04.2024
Artist Manager

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