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Program

Sergei Prokofiev, Betrothal in a Monastery

Overture

I. 1: "But That Is Just Fantasy!"

I. 1: "Plain. Round-Shouldered"

I. 1: "She has shaken your hand"

I. 1: "The moon looks in at your window"

I. 1: "Stop that mewing"

I. 1: Masker's Dance

I. 1: "I had better get her married off"

I. 1: "Friends, depart"

II. 2: "It will work, Nanny, won't it?"

II. 2: "Splendid, Señor, splendid"

II. 2: "Will you cherish me in my old age"

II. 2: "Give it back!"

II. 2: "If you have a daughter"

II. 2: "It looks like the first act"

II. 3: "Buy some fish"

II. 3: "Rosina... Rosina..."

II. 3: "Ferdinand alone is dearest"

II. 3: "If I had known"

II. 3: "My beard?"

II. 3: "There is no greater happiness"

II. 4: "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"

II. 4: "My pretty... My pretty..."

II. 4: "When the cheerful fop starts hanging around"

II. 4: "Well?"

III. 5: "Ah, time does not want to move on at all"

III. 5: "Come in, come in, Antonio"

III. 5: "Should we take a sly look"

III. 5: "It's bad to peep"

III. 5: "How my soul is beaming!"

III. 6: "You are not playing in tune"

III. 6: "My respectful greetings to the Señor"

III. 6: "Please, let us continue"

III. 6: "Lopez!"

III. 7: "Here I am, a nun"

III. 7: "They have gone gladdened"

III. 7: "It must be here..."

IV. 8: "The bottle is the sun of our lives"

IV. 8: "To the pretty nun"

IV. 8: "They're bringing more wine!"

IV. 8: "Take care, Antonio!"

IV. 8: "Straight down to business now"

IV. 9: "I can't understand it"

IV. 9: "Aha, here's Mendoza at last"

IV. 9: "What is this?"

IV. 9: "Son! At last"

IV. 9: "Don Jerome, Don Jerome!"

Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery

Dmitri Tcherniakov (stage director), Daniel Barenboim (conductor) — With Aida Garifullina (Luisa), Violeta Urmana (Duenya)...

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Cast

Dmitri Tcherniakov — Stage director, set designer

Elena Zaytseva — Costume designer

Gleb Filshtinsky — Lighting designer

Alexey Poluboyarinov — Video designer

Jana Beckmann — Dramaturgy

Detlef Giese — Dramaturgy

Stephan Rügamer — Don Jerome

Program notes

The support group for opera addicts is in session, and its participants perform Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery. Rarely performed outside Russia, and consigned to oblivion by Andrei Zhdanov's anti-formalist policies after the Second World War, the work is transformed by Dmitri Tcherniakov's extravagant staging. Under the baton of Daniel Barenboim, an all-star cast featuring Aida Garifullina and Violeta Urmana bring the characters to life on stage at Berlin's Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

In adapting the English-language comic opera The Duenna by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Prokofiev offered a satire of Western society in the grand comic tradition, in keeping with the Soviet anticlerical tradition advocated by Stalin. Louisa is promised to wealthy fishmonger Mendoza but loves the humble Antonio; Louisa's brother Ferdinand loves Louisa's friend Clara, but she has run off to seek sanctuary in a nunnery. Through clever disguises and identity swaps, the young people find a way to write their own destiny and let love triumph. In Tcherniakov's staging, two levels of narration intertwine, as new characters — the members of the opera addicts' group — take on the roles from Betrothal in a Monastery, a multilayered mise en scène that transforms the story into a clever and thought-provoking pastiche of the opera world.

A closer look: featured composers

Sergei Prokofiev