The Thieving Magpie
Gioachino Rossini
Libretto by Giovanni Gherardini
2016
Glimmerglass Festival
Creative Team:
Conductor: Joseph Colaneri
Choreographer: Meg Gillentine
Set & Costume Designer: Myung Hee Cho
Lighting Designer: Mark McCullough
Cast:
Ninetta: Rachele Gilmore
Giannetto: Michele Angelini
Gottardo (Podestà): Musa Ngqungwana
Fernando Villabella: Dale Travis
Pippo: Allegra De Vita
Isacco / Antonio: Brad Raymond
Lucia: Leah Hawkins
Fabrizio Vingradito: Calvin Griffin
The Magpie: Meg Gillentine
“The Thieving Magpie (La Gazza Ladra, for sticklers) is a delightful opera that gets a rousing and captivating production directed by Peter Kazaras at the Glimmerglass Festival…You can’t have a thieving magpie without a magpie and that can be a plastic one in a cage or a dancer. Kazaras has choreographer Meg Gillentine in an ornate “magpie” costume greet the patrons as they take their seats in the theatre. She has a large cage on the stage and she dances in and out of it in a delightful performance…Kazaras does excellent work.
...A simple delightful evening at the opera.”
“The chance to hear Rossini in top form, rescued from silence by conductor Joseph Coloneri and stage director Peter Kazaras, means that Thieving Magpie is one of the most compelling productions anywhere this summer…This rich production is awash with visual wit… ”
“Peter Kazaras’s witty production… was funny without undermining the opera-semiseria core”
Photo Credit: Karli Cadel
