Donizetti’s Elixir of Love at the Szeged Open-Air Festival
Donizetti's comic opera, The Elixir of Love, will be performed during the 2024 Szeged Open-Air Festival (Szegedi Szabadtéri). The opera, directed by Veronika Bonecz, will be performed in Italian, on August 10 at the Újszeged outdoor stage.
Instead of a concert, the management of the Szegedi Szabadtéri decided to present a full opera for the audience – announced László Barnák, managing director of the Szegedi Szabadtéri, at the rehearsed reading held at the National Theater of Szeged on Tuesday.
Music director Péter Dobszay spoke about the importance of giving motivational tasks to the singers in connection with the choice of pieces, adding that this will be an excellent opportunity for the opera department of the National Theater of Szeged to demonstrate its talent at the Open-Air Festival.
After Manon Lescaut, the season opener at the theater, we were considering presenting a lighter, more entertaining opera, which fits well into the milieu of the Újszeged stage. Everyone is preparing for the August premiere with great heart and talent, said Péter Dobszay.
The play's director, Veronika Bonecz, obtained both her degrees in Italy. She studied philology at the Università Iuav di Venezia, where she worked on opera librettos, and then obtained a master's degree in opera directing. Veronika revealed that she has many ties to Szeged, as she was not only born here but her father sang in the choir of the National Theater of Szeged. Last October she was the dramaturg of Manon Lescaut, directed by Tamás Juronics, and now she is making her debut as a director on the stage of the Szegedi Szabadtéri.
"I will try to focus on the personal relationships of the characters, not on the space. Therefore, the performance will not have a separate costume and set designer. In the spirit of sustainability, we searched the theater's set and costume storage and repurposed existing items," explained the director. Since Donizetti's opera has no historical background, the Újszeged performance will also be timeless, with a slight nineteenth-century touch, she added.
Photos: Szilvia Molnar / Szegedify
