Warlikowski’s „Alceste” at the Festival

On 19 April we invited the Festival’s spectators to see the TV production video show of “Alceste” directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski in the Artur Rubinstein Philharmonic in Łódź. The opera was produced by the Royal Theatre in Madrid. The show was one of the evets of the 22^nd edition of International Festival of Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant. It presented Krzysztof Warlikowski – the main hero of the Festival – as an opera director and this part of his work is not well-known in Poland. Before the show Piotr Gruszczyński – the Nowy Theatre’s playwriter – gave a short introduction.

While producing “Alceste” music director Ivor Bolton and stage director Krzysztof Warlikowski reached for an exciting musical universe of German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck. For the Madrid staging of the opera Warlikowski used its French version which is darker and more disturbing than the Italian original. It is also closer to the drama of Euripides – the very important author for the director. Warlikowski moved the action of the 18^th century work to the present and the staging was inspired by the life of Diana, princess of Wales, oppressed by the hypocrisy and the protocol of court life.

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Christoph Willibald Gluck

„Alceste”

Director: Ivor Bolton

Stage director: Krzysztof Warlikowski

Sets and costumes: Małgorzata Szczęśniak

Playwriting: Damien Chardonnet-Darmaillacq

Cast: Paul Groves, Angela Denoke, Willard White, Fernando Radó, Thomas Olieman, Isaac Galan