He was touted as the new star in Italy’s operatic firmament around 1910. Publisher Tito Ricordi had big plans for the young Riccardo Zandonai and was sparing no cost to achieve the same triumphs with him as Giulio Ricordi had done a generation earlier with the young Puccini. For a huge fee, Ricordi secured the rights to a scandalous contemporary play - Gabriele D’Annunzio’s 5-act drama “Francesca da Rimini” – which had created a stir with its bloody civil-war scenes, cruel passions and adulterous couple. D’Annunzio’s fin-de-siècle-esque “poem of blood and lust” was all the rage in artist circles. The 31-year-old Riccardo Zandonai spied his chance to pen a florid opera of grandiose scale in a musical language fusing a raft of styles and epochs. And sure enough, Zandonai ploughs his individual European furrow of musical theatre, encompassing Italian bel canto, hints of Renaissance madrigals, gritty verismo, pre-Fascist marches, Wagner’s TRISTAN as a point of reference and a French Impressionism à la Debussy.

Francesca da Rimini

Deutsche Oper Berlin

He takes down the largest concert halls around the world. Now he has found his way to Tivoli again with a concert where he has composed the entire program himself. The brilliant, Chilean-born tenor star Jonathan Tetelman comes to Copenhagen together with our resident star soprano Yana Klayn. He has conjured up the idea that the very best opera duets are those between lovers, who, as we already know from the start, often never get to see each other. Something very special happens with both the scenic expression and the composers' imagination when the all-encompassing love, which we as the audience know cannot be allowed to unfold, becomes the focal point.

Riccardo Zandonai

Events

Past events

Oct 24 - Nov 14, 2025

Francesca da Rimini · Deutsche Oper Berlin

Jun 12, 2025

Tivoli: Tetelman and Kleyn – Impossible Love · Copenhagen Phil

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