Opera Ithaca has produced a ”backstabbingly socially distant” orchestrated film version of Puccini’s one-act comic opera Gianni Schicchi.
The opera is set to be released for streaming on Friday, October 9, 2020, through Cinemapolis, Ithaca’s premiere independent movie theater, and available to stream for two weeks exclusively at https://cinemapolis.org/virtual-cinema/. The streaming price is $25. The company is offering a student and industry discount. For information on the discount, please email info@operaithaca.org. Following its run at Cinemapolis, Gianni Schicchi will be streamed on demand at www.operaithaca.org.
The opera, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in the midst of the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, is set in the present day. Gianni Schicchi tells the story of the Donati family as they attempt to thwart the will of their patriarch, who has disinherited them all. They enlist the aid of the titular con man, who has an agenda of his own.
Filmed and recorded with complete social distance measures in place, the dramatic thrust of the narrative has been shaped to mirror the current circumstances, and Puccini’s 102-year-old masterpiece again shines with its timelessness and familiar immediacy. “We are taking life as we know it in 2020 and throwing in opera’s favorite dysfunctional family,” said director Ben Robinson, adding that, “the socially distant filming and recording is blended seamlessly into a deliciously familiar narrative about the Donati clan, whose desperation is made all the more palpable when dropped into the circumstances in which all of us are currently living.”
Most of the artistic team and the instrumentalists are Ithaca locals, but the singers include top voices from all around the United States. The cast includes Opera Ithaca veterans Dennis Jesse in the title role and renowned soprano Emily Pulley in her role debut as Zita. Ithaca College alums Elena Galván as Lauretta and Daniel Bates as Rinuccio play the lovers. Local baritone Steven Stull is Simone and Nicholas Davis makes his company debut as Betto.
The singers and instrumentalists were filmed and recorded remotely, and the tracks combined, to produce a stunning version of the opera. The work was directed by Opera Ithaca Artistic Director Ben Robinson, with Christopher Zemliauskas as conductor. The opera’s audio project design was led by Benjamin Costello and the project was co-directed and edited by David Kossack, working with his studio, PhotoSynthesis Productions.
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https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/2020092821160015