Michele Mariotti

Michele Mariotti conducts the Orchestra of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma in three musical masterpieces: Franz Schubert’s Entr’acte No. 3 from the drama Rosamunde, Gustav Mahler’s cycle of Kindertotenlieder and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E flat major op. 55 “Eroica”.

The Entr’acte No. 3, composed by Schubert in 1823, is part of the incidental music, that is, the accompanying music for the “romantic drama” in four acts Rosamunde, Fürstin von Cypern (Rosamunda, Princess of Cyprus) written by the poet Helmina von Chézy (1783 – 1856). Of the three Entr’actes, in fact, the third in particular, consisting of an Andantino in B flat major, is justly famous for its beautiful initial melodic idea, entrusted to the first violins with the accompaniment of the strings.

Composed by Mahler between 1901 and 1904, the Kindertotenlieder (Songs for Dead Children) are a cycle of five lieder for voice and orchestra, which take up the collection of lyrics of the same name that the poet Friedrich Rückert wrote in 1834, after the premature death of his children Luise and Ernst, published posthumously in 1872. The great Viennese composer brought together the five chosen lyrics in a single cycle with a symphonic and vocal climax graduated between pain, memory, vision, hope and revelation. The lieder, which translate the painful pages of Rückert's work into music, after the success of the first Viennese performance in 1905, would remain among Mahler's favourite and most performed works.

The Symphony No. 3, op. 55 finally, also known as Eroica, is a work characterized by emotional depth and structural rigor. Completed by Beethoven in 1804 and performed the following year, this composition has a decisive role in the entire history of music, as it lays the first foundations of transition between Classicism and Romanticism, also marking the beginning of the “heroic” period of Beethoven's production. Originally intended to be dedicated to Napoleon, seen by the composer as the embodiment of the ideals of the Revolution, it was ultimately dedicated by Beethoven to Prince Lobkowitz, disappointed by the fact that Napoleon, in proclaiming himself Emperor of the French, had betrayed the republican ideals.

Orchestra of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma; baritone Markus Werba.