Teatro Nuovo celebrates a season of firsts at Alexander Kasser Theater (Montclair State University) and the New York City Center July 19-24, 2025
Featuring Verdi’s original Macbeth (1847), the first American presentation of Verdi’s music with a period-instrument orchestra, and the first New York City performance of Bellini’s La Sonnambula in its original keys
This season’s casting includes the return of Ricardo José Rivera, Teresa Castillo, and Christopher Bozeka and the debuts of Alexandra Loutsion, Martin Luther Clark, Cumhur Görgün, Owen Phillipson, and Abigail Raiford
Teatro Nuovo moves their NYC performances to the historic New York City Center, former home of the City Opera
February 10, New York City – Teatro Nuovo announces repertory and casting for its 2025 Bel Canto Festival, with performances of Verdi’s Macbeth (in its original 1847 version) and Bellini’s La Sonnambula. Both operas will be performed with the company’s renowned period-instrument orchestra, a first for Verdi in America. They will be seen at the Alexander Kasser Theater of Montclair State University and, in a new move for the company, at the historic New York City Center, home of the City Opera in its glory days.
As Macbeth and his Lady, Teatro Nuovo welcomes the return of baritone Ricardo José Rivera (“star quality,” according to The New Yorker, in Anna di Resburgo) and the debut of Alexandra Loutsion (“absolutely glorious” as Brünnhilde in Santa Barbara). Bellini’s Sleepwalker and her beloved Elvino will be returning artists Teresa Castillo (“easygoing, glittering bravura” in Crispino e la Comare) and Christopher Bozeka (“his upper register gleamed with delicacy and beauty” at Opera Southwest).
Other casting includes the debut of tenor Martin Luther Clark as Macduff, bass-baritone Cumhur Görgün as Banco, bass Owen Phillipson as Count Rodolfo, and soprano Abigail Raiford as the anti-heroine Lisa in La Sonnambula. Mr. Phillipson and Ms. Raiford are alums of the Teatro Nuovo training program, as is Mr. Bozeka.
Musical leadership will be by TN’s traditional violin-and-keyboard team for Bellini’s 1831 opera: Will Crutchfield as Maestro al Cembalo is joined by Elisa Citterio as Primo Violino e Capo d’Orchestra, following her brilliant debut leading the orchestra of Anna di Resburgo last year. For Macbeth, composed when non-playing leadership was just coming into the Italian picture, Associate Artistic Director Jakob Lehmann will lead, marking the debut of the conductor’s baton in TN’s operas!
As far as is known, this will be the first modern presentation of the 1847 Macbeth in New York City. The familiar (revised) score is rightly beloved and often heard, but it is thrilling to experience a Macbeth entirely written in the blood-and-thunder style of Ernani, Nabucco, and the other masterpieces of Verdi’s youth. An opera composed at a single throw, one might say, or carved from one block of marble.
And again, as far as is known, this will be the first New York City performance of La Sonnambula in its original keys, as composed for Giuditta Pasta and Giambattista Rubini. “They make a difference,” said TN General Director Will Crutchfield when explaining the edition. Several major portions of the score take on a different color in the higher keys Bellini chose, which were modified for later editions. As usual, TN has some additional surprises in store as well: some beautiful passages cut from the score before its premiere, and some spectacular variations by the composer himself, unknown in modern times.
The two operas are linked by their famous scenes of sleepwalking sopranos. “The Romantic era was fascinated by altered states of consciousness,” said Crutchfield in announcing the season. “Hypnosis, enchantment, insanity, somnambulism–all these were part of the exploration of the extremes of human experience. These operas are not limited to individual scenes of sleepwalking; they are themes woven through everything. In Shakespeare–and it is one of the lines Verdi took care to have preserved in the libretto–the loss of sleep is Macbeth’s punishment for killing the sleeping King, and Lady Macbeth is condemned to relive her guilt in her own troubled sleep. In La Sonnambula we see a whole village of sleepwalkers–living in the past, gossiping, seeing ghosts, obsessed with partners they can’t have, and obsessed with their departed relatives. Only Amina is wide awake and living in the present, and her sleepwalking, in effect, wakes everyone else up.”
Teatro Nuovo is coming off a 2024 season that included its most renowned project to date, a revival of Carolina Uccelli’s Anna di Resburgo that made the New York Times list of the twenty best classical-music events of the year. The company’s success was subsequently recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts with a first-time grant in the recently announced list of awards for 2025. Teatro Nuovo further announced a new collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy and its Italian Cultural Institute in New York. A series of special events will begin on April 3 with a recital by bass Mattia Venni (the “sensational” hero of Crispino e la Comare in 2023, according to the Times) and continue on May 14 with a symposium on Verdi and his Macbeth. Details and further events will be announced shortly by the Institute and Teatro Nuovo.
Verdi: Macbeth (original 1847 version)
Saturday July 19, Kasser Theater, Montclair State University 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday July 23, New York City Center 7:30 p.m.
Bellini: La Sonnambula
Sunday July 20, Kasser Theater, Montclair State University 3:00 p.m.
Thursday July 24, New York City Center 7:30 p.m.
