Space: Scuderie di Palazzo Corsini
Production: New Generation Festival

Author: Christoph Willibald Gluck
Musical Direction: Max Fane

Cast: Orfeo — Elspeth Marrow, Euridice — Sophie Gallagher, Amor — Xavier Hetherington, Chorus (SATB Quartet) — Maria Salvini, Olympia Hetherington, TBC, Gabriel Alexander

Orchestra:
Piano — Stefano Marzanni, String Quartet — Laure Chan, Katarina Dordevic, TBC, Iain Hall

Creative Team:
Director — Maximilian Fane
Direction — Edoardo Zucchetti
Producer — Sophie Gallagher
Tour Manager & Press — Max Wilson
Costume Design — Zara Boatto

Photography: Marco Borrelli
Video: Watch

Orfeo ed Euridice by Christoph Willibald Gluck is presented here in a reduced “Fringe” staging, developed for a young, international ensemble as part of the New Generation Festival.

Drawing on the enduring myth of Orpheus and Eurydice—one of the most revisited narratives across artistic disciplines—the production strips the opera of ornamental elements and redundancies, focusing instead on clarity, energy, and immediacy. The result is a compact, 90-minute work designed to engage the audience through the expressive force of a reduced ensemble, a young conductor, and the central voices of Orfeo, Euridice, and Amor.

The staging unfolds in a timeless setting, conceived as a space that reflects all the eras through which the myth has travelled. Within this framework, the production emphasizes imagination and narrative continuity, creating an accessible and direct encounter with the operatic form while maintaining a strong connection to its classical roots.

Presented at Palazzo Corsini al Prato, the work forms part of the New Generation Festival’s broader activity in reinterpreting operatic repertoire for contemporary audiences.

Space: Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Production: Festival del Maggio

Composer: Fabio Vacchi
Librettist: Aldo Nove
Conductor: John Axelrod
Directed and filmed by Edoardo Zucchetti.
Cast: Singers and Choir

Set Design: Moby Dick (street artist)
Photography: Moggi & Contrasto

Lo specchio magico is an Urban Art Dance Opera by Fabio Vacchi, with a libretto by Aldo Nove, premiered at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under the direction of John Axelrod.

The work explores the theme of pacifism through a sequence of episodes set across different historical periods, from ancient Greece to the present day. These scenes are connected on stage by the presence of a storyteller, performed by the rapper Millelemmi, and a dancer, creating a continuous narrative structure that moves between music, spoken word, and movement.

The staging is built around a single visual element: a screen onto which graffiti are projected in real time. These are created live outside the theatre by the street artist Marco Tarascio (Moby Dick), responding directly to the music. This process introduces an unexpected visual layer, establishing a dialogue between contemporary urban culture and the formal language of opera.

At the center of the work is the image of a “magic mirror,” a device through which a young boy reveals to four tyrants the possible future of the planet. The opera unfolds as a journey across time and geography, combining historical reflection with a broader meditation on conflict, storytelling, and the possibility of change.