Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia: Adriana Lecouvreur

About the Event

Valencia’s extraordinary City of Arts and Sciences sets the stage for an unforgettable evening of opera at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia.

Adriana Lecouvreur, or the Theatre as Battlefield

Behind the splendour of eighteenth‐century luxury lies a devastating struggle over status. Adriana is a celebrated actress who, from within a profession long disdained, dares to rival the Princess of Bouillon in love, an untouchable aristocrat protected by the laws of the ancien régime. This conflict makes *Adriana Lecouvreur* more than a verismo tragedy of love and jealousy, raising it into a chronicle of an old world resisting death and a new individual dignity founded on profession and feeling rather than title. The theatre becomes the decisive battlefield when Adriana publicly humiliates the Princess, hurling verses about adultery at her. It is the only moment when hierarchy is reversed, and the actress dominates the noblewoman in an act of defiance that seals her tragic fate. Her death comes through the scent of withered violets sent by the Princess: the ultimate metaphor for the artist’s fragility before the machinery of power.

The elegant, passionate verismo of *Adriana Lecouvreur* reaches Les Arts under the guidance of dream‐maker Vincent Boussard. His *Giulio Cesare in Egitto*, which bewitched us all, remains unforgettable. In *Adriana Lecouvreur*, the French director unites the opera’s intricate dramaturgy with the suggestive visual beauty of its sets and costumes, preserving the original dramatic context while concentrating on the central triangle’s psychology. Premiered at the Riga Opera Festival in 2023, the Valencia production stars soprano Ermonela Jaho, admired for her expressive artistry and recognised as a leading verismo interpreter. Her partner is tenor Charles Castronovo (Maurizio), previously welcomed in *Manon*, alongside the imposing voices of Roberto Frontali and Clémentine Margaine as the scheming Princess, whose powerful dark tone carries impressive dramatic force. Returning to Valencia is one of the city’s most acclaimed conductors, Maurizio Benini, an elegant and exceptionally versatile maestro, always attentive to the score’s finest details.