Iris

Venue: Teatro Regio Torino. Organizer: Teatro Regio Torino Iris | Pietro Mascagni There is no point beating around the bush: Mascagni's works after Cavalleria rusticana, all different from one another, were overshadowed by the fame of the first. A fate that is unjust in many respects, given their musical quality. Iris is one of these hidden gems: first performed in 1898, it is the first case of an Italian opera set in Japan and anticipates some ideas that would shortly be found in Madama Butterfly (with the same librettist, Luigi Illica, incidentally). But unlike Puccini's, Mascagni's Japan is idealized and completely detached from reality, as befits a symbolist drama: in an idyllic place, among flowers, bamboo and streams, two agents of evil are lurking. The victim is a girl whom Illica and Mascagni manage to follow with masterful skill through the tortuous paths of her mind, where dreams and childhood memories clash with the horror of the world, the abduction for the purpose of sexual abuse and finally the agony on the mysterious border between life and death. Their creation explores an intimate side of femininity, in this case