“Luci mie traditrici” (Oh My Betraying Eyes) is an opera in two acts by Salvatore Sciarrino, who also wrote the libretto. It was first performed under the German title “Die tödliche Blume” (The Deadly Flower) on 19 May 1998 in the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen at the Schwetzingen Festival.
Focused on the theme of love, betrayal, jealousy, it takes inspiration from the story of Gesualdo da Venosa, a seventeenth-century composer known for his dense madrigals of a sought-after and visionary harmony for the time, and known for having killed his wife and his lover.
Thus Sciarrino speaks of his work: «”Luci mie traditrici” wanted to be the true affirmation of a reform of the theater, because the use of voices, the invention and the maturation of the vocal style allow again to do theater, not just singing generically on the scene, something that never interested me. Mine is a theater “after” the cinema, starting from the way the scenes are cut, which proceed by dry blocks that “subtract” and make us understand what is happening».
«”Luci mie traditrici” is a work in the full sense of the term. It does not go back to pre-existing models, nor does it get dirty with cheap rhetoric. Its strength lies in the expression of the song, in the creation of a vocal style. A new style invented».
Website: www.teatrolafenice.it
Location: Malibran Theatre, Venice
Schedule: from September 13th to 24th 2019
Hour: 7 pm Friday, Wednesday, Tuesday / 3.30 pm Saturday, Sunday
Ticket: up to € 143
