Is madness a means of escaping reality? Or — on the contrary — a way of confronting it? With his monodrama Eight Songs for a Mad King, Peter Maxwell Davies created in 1968 a brilliantly crafted character study of the deranged British monarch George III, whose reign began in 1760, drawing on the king’s own original texts. Seductive melodies stand alongside dissonances in this modern music-theater classic, which sketches a portrait of emotional and mental disintegration: they are provocative, yet at the same time reveal a startling lucidity.

Luzerner Theater Opera Ensemble | Lucerne Symphony Orchestra | Maria Radzikhovskiy | Marie Lambert-Le Bihan

Lucerne Theatre

An opera troupe gathers in the theatre of a small Italian town to rehearse the serious melodrama scheduled for the local fair season. The libretto—by none other than Metastasio—has been clumsily adapted by a local hack poet, then set to music by an even more provincial composer. As for the singers, they may be second-rate, but they carry themselves with all the airs and demands of true stars. And so the stage quickly fills with squabbles between rival prima donnas, grumbling from the disgruntled, and a harried poet and composer struggling to satisfy everyone’s whims—not to mention meddling mothers and intrusive husbands.

Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali

Gaetano Donizetti Theater

After The Glass Zoo, which Leonardo Lidi adapted and directed, the LAC is once again producing a text by Tennessee Williams, Suddenly Last Summer, a drama laden with symbols and visions, which unfolds like a psychological thriller in a claustrophobic vortex of tension and violence.

Ilaria Ariemme

Events

Upcoming events

Aug 28, 2026

Luzerner Theater Opera Ensemble | Lucerne Symphony Orchestra | Maria Radzikhovskiy | Marie Lambert-Le Bihan · Lucerne Festival

12 - 28 Nov, 2026

Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali · Fondazione Teatro Donizetti

6 - 14 Mar, 2027

Suddenly Last Summer · Fondazione Teatro Donizetti

About

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