{"id":38723,"date":"2018-03-09T00:15:45","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T07:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=38723"},"modified":"2018-03-09T00:16:58","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T07:16:58","slug":"romance-bromance-and-the-greatest-cockblocking-in-history-don-carlo-at-the-israel-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=38723","title":{"rendered":"Romance, Bromance and the Greatest Cockblocking in History: Don Carlo at the Israel Opera"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the mid-1500s. The Infante of Spain, Carlo, and Elisabeth of Valois meet and fall in love at first sight\u2026 but then his father, Philip II (and the widower of Mary I of England) takes her hand instead. He vents to his best buddy Rodrigo, who tells him to leave this romantic drama and focus on political activism. Carlo raises Philip\u2019s suspicions and gets the Princess Eboli in trouble because she also has a crush on him. Philip ends up drawing the trump card – the Grand Inquisitor. Of course, because church and state never mix well, the double-crossing leads to a shocking end.<\/p>\n

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Don Carlo\/Photo: Yossi Zwecker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is the plot of Don Carlo<\/em>, the upcoming performance at the Israel Opera, conducted by Verdi master Daniel Oren. One of Verdi\u2019s most complex and unique operas, Don Carlo is based on Schiller\u2019s drama of the same name. To pique your curiosity, here are a few fun facts about these historical figures. Did you know…
\n\u2026 that Carlo was actually mentally unstable?
\n\u2026 that the Princess Eboli wore an eyepatch after losing an eye sword fighting with her father\u2019s pageboy?
\n\u2026 that Elisabeth of Valois was only 14 when these sordid events were going on?
\n\u2026 that the best character in this Opera, Rodrigo, is totally fictional?<\/p>\n

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Don Carlo – Princess Eboli\/Photo courtesy of PR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The opera\u2019s libretto, originally written in French and now performed almost always in Italian, is very loosely based on historical facts, but the operatic counterparts of the characters are just as interesting.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been an interesting season so far at the Israel Opera, now under new management for the first time in years. In January we saw one of the best performances the Opera has done in years: a almost all-Israeli cast Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em> directed by Ido Ricklin. The following production, a Don Giovanni<\/em> directed by Kaspar Holten and also conducted by Oren, was met with mixed, sometimes extreme, reactions. This coming production promises a more familiar experience, with a cast of mostly regulars and locals, and with Daniel Oren coming back to the repertoire he does best: Verdi. Among the voices we\u2019ll hear are Ira Bertman, Gustavo Porta, Ionut Pascu, Carlo Striuli and more. We\u2019re most excited about hearing Simon Lim as Filippo.<\/p>\n

Directing Don Carlo is Giancarlo del Monaco-Zukerman, the son of the famous Italian tenor Mario del Monaco, who has already directed many productions here in Israel, including Carmen at Masada.<\/p>\n

Performances start this Friday and continue through March 23. As always, ticket holders can enjoy additional events such as backstage tours and Opera Talkbacks after the show, on select dates.<\/p>\n

For more details and ticket sales, visit www.israel-opera.co.il.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the mid-1500s. The Infante of Spain, Carlo, and Elisabeth of Valois meet and fall in love at first sight\u2026 but then his father, Philip II (and the widower of Mary I of England) takes her hand instead. He vents to his best buddy Rodrigo, who tells him to leave this romantic drama and focus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":38728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}