The age-old story of boy gets girl, boy loses girl, and boy poisons girl is featured on this week’s Sunday Opera (8/30 3:00 p.m.) in Giuseppe Verdi’s “Luisa Miller” in a production from the Vienna State Opera.
The Tyrolean maid Luisa (Nadine Sierra) is in love with a stranger to her village named Carlo much to the chagrin of her father, and his misgivings are well-founded when Carlo is revealed to be Rodolfo (Freddie De Tommaso), the son of the treacherous Count Walter (Roberto Tagliavini) who has another bride in mind for him, Walter’s niece, Federica (Daria Sushkova).
Add to this the machinations of the evil Wurm (Marko Mimica) who is also in love with Luisa, and our lovers are surely doomed.
Wurm and Count Walter force Luisa to write a note to Rodolfo saying that she never really loved him, she just wanted status. This drives Rodolfo mad, and he poisons Luisa and himself. As they die, Luisa admits that she was forced to lie to him, and they reconcile, reclaim their love, and die in each other’s arms.
Walter is bereft and kills Wurm.
The performance is conducted by Michele Mariotti who is leading the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
We’re changing things up this week with a symphony by Anton Bruckner which can be seen as an example of “death and transfiguration.” Brucker’s emotional Symphony No. 8 in C minor will be performed for us here by the Mozarteumorchester, Salzburg conducted by Ivor Bolton in a performance from 2010.
