Teatro Real, Madrid, Spain. Butaca Paraiso (Seat 13-13, 90 euros).
Inside of the Teatro Real as viewed from our seat at the back of the "paradise" section. The auditorium seats 1746, per their website.
Story. The story is quite simple. Zaida, a favorite slave of Prince Selim, left Turkey for Italy after being falsely accused of infidelity. She is now with a group of Gypsies. Fiorella, meanwhile, is a housewife bored with her marriage to Geronio. When the Turk visits Italy, sparks fly between him and Fiorella, Selim first offers to buy Fiorilla from Geronio, then threatens to kidnap her. At the end, Selim offers Fiorilla to elope to Turkey together. At the end, Selim recognizes and reconciles with Zaida, Fiorilla decides to stay with Geronio.
The simple story is complicated by the role of poet Prosdocimo who is trying to write a story using the events that unfold, Narciso - Fiorilla's servant - who is in love with her, and this costume party where everyone is disguised so it's difficult to tell what is happening.
Conductor - Giacomo Sagripanti. Selim - Adrian Sampetrean; Fiorilla - Sabina Puertolas; Don Geronio - Pietro Spagnoli; Don Narciso - Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani; Poeta Prosdocimo - Mattia Olivieri; Zaida - Chiara Amaru; Albazar - Pablo Garcia-Lopez.
The primary reason for us to be in Madrid was to visit the many museums in town. However, this run of The Turk in Italy coincides with our visit, so it was some sort of a bonus event for us.
I had no idea what to expect, but surprised by several things. One is that tickets are very expensive, ranging from a low of 90 euros to a high of close to 300 euros. Two is that at least for today and tomorrow's performance, most seats were gone. (The website said some more expensive seats were still available, although I couldn't buy them.) Third is the concert hall, with a capacity of just under 2000, has very good acoustics, at least for the nose-bleed seats we had (the section is ironically called "paradise.") They do have two dimly illuminated TVs on both sides of the section, but it wasn't easy to see what's happening. The final surprise was surtitles were in Spanish and English. Unfortunately we didn't bring our binoculars with us, which would have greatly added to our enjoyment.
Front of Teatro Real. Taken at the conclusion of the performance.
One sees the back of the theater coming out of the metro station.
I assume this is a model of the staging setup for the theater, showing how the different sets that can be brought on stage are stationed.
As I write this, I already have another two events (just before midnight June 9) that took place, so I have to brief. In any case, I have forgotten a lot of it.
All the singers came through strongly. From the first note on I was impressed with how great things sounded. That would include the orchestra as well.
Curtain Call. The two gentlemen in black in the middle are the choir director (left in photo) and the conductor. To their left is Selim, the their right are Fiorilla and Geronio. The woman at the right end (as seen in photo) is Zaida.
The set is on the simple side. Basically we have two houses, one belongs to Geronio and Fiorilla, and another "general purpose" building. They move as the situations requires. Hedges in front also serve as props for the singers. For the boat scene they used what I can only describe as partially open books; if there is a hidden meaning, it escapes me.
Nonetheless, we found the opera enjoyable. The availability of English surtitle certainly made things more understandable for us. The complex intertwining of the story lines would have otherwise not been able to sort out.
I wasn't sure what Madrid would be like late at night. Turns out there were still lots of people out and about in the area at around 11 pm. It was quiet where our hotel was. We were either naive, or we felt very safe getting back.
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