From 28 March to 6 April, Anna Bolena returns to La Fenice after almost two centuries of absence from the programme.
The last time Gaetano Donizetti’s Anna Bolena was staged at the Fenice Theatre in Venice was in 1857, starring Ignazio Marini as Henry VIII. The opera was quite successful when it first came out, and ran for forty years before its popularity waned. So much so that there have been virtually no stagings in the whole first half of the twentieth century. It was only in 1957, at Milan’s Scala Theatre, that the piece found its second life thanks to exceptional performances by Giulietta Simionato, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, and especially Maria Callas as Henry’s sorry first wife. Although in that occasion, Anne Boleyn was performed in abridged version, it did slowly find its place in theatre programmes. In Venice, we shall see a version by director Pier Luigi Pizzi and conductor Renato Balsadonna. Starring as Anne is Lidia Fridman, while Henry will be played by Alex Esposito.
