In the labyrinth of the female soul
Giacomo Puccini was the object of women’s attention throughout his life. His biographers are particularly fond of detailing the handsome and much admired composer’s involvement with women and his reputation as a womanizer. They are particularly fascinated by the fact that he eventually chose a married woman with children as his partner, and later regularly cheated on her, too.
Giacomo always loved a good treat, and enjoyed the pleasures of life; good food, fine cigarettes, luscious wines, the automobile and the wonders of nature. Giacomo was passionate about beauty, and for him the highest embodiment of beauty was ‘la Donna’: WOMAN.
In fact, the central figure in all Puccini’s operas is a woman. He excels in depicting his unique and very different heroines’ character by some infinitely sophisticated means. It is well known that the composer drove his librettists almost mad, fighting tooth and nail to achieve the most perfect expressions possible. He was also extremely careful in his choice of subject matter. Of course, none of his operas can be reduced to a single tragic love story, but let us turn our attention to the opera heroines and the object of their love, respectively.
We are by no means presenting you with a biographical performance interspersed with opera passages, nor are we going to talk about the piquant secrets of the life of the great Italian master. Instead, BDO’s production is an attempt to show Puccini’s admiration for the female figures he created, and his eternal desire to unravel the mystery of the feminine.
The performance is the story of a single mystical night in which a mysterious, unknown woman makes appearance, and a strange, twosome wandering unfolds in the labyrinth of the female soul – through the hearts of Mimi, Musette, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Liu, and in Turandot’s own deadly love universe.
