by InTrieste
The Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi will open its 2025–26 opera and ballet season with an unusual artistic proposition: a paired staging of Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Le Nozze di Figaro, conceived as complementary productions exploring the evolution of one of opera’s most enduring characters.
Both works will be directed and designed by Pier Luigi Pizzi — a major figure in international opera making his first full debut in Trieste — with musical direction by Enrico Calesso, who recently led the world premiere of Giorgio Battistelli’s Fedeli d’Amore for Gorizia 2025, the upcoming European Capital of Culture.
The programming reflects a broader moment of momentum for the theater. The Verdi reports a substantial rise in subscriptions to its symphonic season and, more notably, to opera, even before the campaign closes on December 12.
Two Productions, One Weekend
The theater has organized the calendar so that audiences may see both operas over the same weekend, a strategy intended to draw visitors from neighboring regions and reinforce the city’s role as a cultural hub in a multilingual border area.
The decision to focus on Figaro — the creation of the 18th-century playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais — places the spotlight on one of the most emblematic figures of pre-Revolutionary drama. In Beaumarchais’s trilogy, Figaro embodies a sharp-witted servant who challenges social hierarchies, a character whose resonance attracted composers from Mozart to Rossini.
In Trieste, the Verdi has chosen to explore this legacy through Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, offering two new productions linked by visual and conceptual continuity. Pizzi, together with lighting designer and associate director Massimo Pizzi Gasparon Contarini, describes the staging as “a stylized and essential space that evokes personal memory — a place of both joy and melancholy.” The visual language, he said, aims for expression rather than imitation, aligning with the clarity and proportion demanded by neoclassical music.
Casting and Creative Team
The casts draw largely from rising and mid-career artists active on international stages.
For Il Barbiere di Siviglia, which opens on November 28, baritone Alessandro Luongo will sing Figaro, joined by mezzo-soprano Annalisa Stroppa as Rosina and tenor Marco Ciaponi as Count Almaviva. Marco Filippo Romano, Abramo Rosalen and Anna Maria Chiuri complete the principal roles. Performances run through December 20, including a final date in Udine.
In Le Nozze di Figaro, launching November 29, Simone Alberghini appears as Figaro with Carolina Lippo as Susanna. Ekaterina Bakanova sings the Countess, and Giorgio Caoduro — a well-known baritone from the Friuli Venezia Giulia region — takes the role of Count Almaviva. Andrea Concetti appears as Bartolo. As in Barbiere, there will be no second casts; all performances feature the same singers.
Both operas are produced by the Teatro Verdi with sets, costumes, orchestra, chorus and technical staff from the foundation.
A Season Shaped by Growth
The theater notes that subscription numbers have already surpassed last year’s figures by more than 100, with two weeks still remaining in the campaign. Ticket prices, the Verdi added, have remained unchanged for several years.
