Дуэнья (Обручение в монастыре)

Lyric opera-buffa in four acts

Libretto by Sergei Prokofiev and Mira Prokofieva-Mendelson, based on Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play The Duenna (1775) 

The opera was written in 1940. This version was first performed in Perm in 2013. Running time: 3 hours 40 minutes including 2 intervals

Seville nobleman Don Jerome intends to marry his daughter Louisa to old, wealthy fish merchant Mendoza, while Louisa is dying of love for the young but poor Antonio. In order to avoid the unequal marriage, the girl runs away from home dressed as her duenna (aged nanny), while the duenna remains to play the part of her charge. The Duenna (also known as Betrothal in a Monastery) is one of Prokofiev’s most vivacious operas, but is infrequently performed. This is all the more unusual when you consider that The Duenna, which has much in common with Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, has the potential to be a hit in any interpretation. 

Director Andrejs Žagars has moved the setting of the opera from the eighteenth century to 1970s Spain, where, waking up from the Francoist era, cultural and sexual revolutions are going hand in hand. The people are gladly welcoming this new world: they are happy and dance a great deal. The lovers’ passions are played out among port containers painted in bright colours that, during the opera, become additional stages for the mise-en-scenes. Costume designer Kristine Pasternak toured almost all the antique dealers, flea markets, and second-hand shops in Riga and Perm in order to create unforgettable images for the numerous characters. 

Age category: 16+