La Regenta

After more than a hundred years, this masterpiece by Leopoldo Alas "Clarín" has found its place in the opera repertoire and is being premiered for the first time thanks to the Teatro Real and Naves del Español. A story about passions, hatred, jealousy and obsessions that portrays the Spanish society of the time. After Amina in La Sonnambula in December 2022, Bárbara Lluch returns to stage another complex female character, Ana Ozores.

Leopoldo Alas, “Clarín”, was a regular in the upper galleries of the Teatro Real during the years he lived in city and at court, a fact which is reflected in his novel La Regenta with its various allusions to Rossini’s Barber. To the contrary, this story —which, according to composer Marisa Manchado, is the story of any city, town, place... close minded, ignorant, prudish, with a delusion to be what one is not and above all, cowardly, so cowardly as to be merciless with the weakest link— has had to wait until our times to find its way to the opera stage.

The third opera by Manchado is the culmination of a long process which began in 2002 during the summer school courses at the UIMP (Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo), at the suggestion of Professor Amelia Valcárcel. The libretto —written in a close collaboration, in the manner of a Da Ponte/ Mozart or a Boito/Verdi— is the basis for a score that the composer incorporates in the operatic tradition —or in an operatic/ ritual sense, if you will    — by way of a varied range of leitmotiv, in what could be considered a voluntary exercise in depersonalization at the service of drama.

Opera in three acts

Music by María Luisa Manchado Torres (1956)

Libretto by Amelia Valcárcel y Bernaldo de Quirós, based on the eponymous novel (1884-1885) by Leopoldo Alas, Clarín 

World premiere

New co-production of the Teatro Real with the Teatro Español

Artistic Team

Musical conductor: Jordi Francés

Stage direction: Bárbara Lluch

Stage and lighting design: Urs Schönebaum

Costume design: Clara Peluffo

Music editing: Guillermo Buendía

Chorus director: Josep Vila i Casañas

Cast

La Regenta, Ana Ozores: María Miro

El magistral, Fermín de Pas: David Oller

Álvaro Mesía: Vicenç Esteve

Don Víctor: Cristian Díaz

Paco Vegallana: Pablo García-López

Obdulia: María-Rey Joly

Petra: Anna Gomá

Doña Paula: Laura Vila

Sapo: Gabriel Díaz

Chorus of the Community of Madrid

Orchestra of the Teatro Real