Washington National Opera takes on La Forza del Destino.
by Paul J. Pelkonen
by Paul J. Pelkonen
She wants YOU: Preziosilla (Ketevan Kemoklidze) summons the troops in La Forza del Destino.
Photo by Scott Suchman © 2013 Washington National Opera/The Kennedy Center.
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It is a bold stroke for new Washington National Opera artistic director Francesca Zambello to tackle Giuseppe Verdi's La Forza del Destino in a new production for the composer's bicentennial year. Forza is Verdi's great theatrical experiment, crossing a Spanish revenge tragedy with the sprawling worldview of a Schiller play. The sprawling plot gleefully demands abandonment of Aristotelian unities (and even logic) to tell a story that amounts to an interconnected series of unfortunate events. It is also the opera world's equivalent of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Whispered backstage stories tell of ill fortune--even death--befalling those who dare to sing its three leading roles.
