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Under The patronage of HRH Princess Muna al Hussein, the Amman Opera Festival will once again delight Jordanian audiences with Giuseppe Verdi's iconic opera La Traviata.
After their two year hiatus, due to the worldwide Covid pandemic, the festival will return with the same opera that kicked off their inaugural event back in 2017.
This version of La Traviata will feature Zeina Barhoum as Violetta, Riccardo Gatto as Alfredo, Carlo Morini as Giorgio Germont, Eva Macaggi as Flora, Talia Ghosheh as Annina, Graziano Issa as Giuseppe and many other singers from both Italy and Jordan, accompanied by the Italian Piacenza Opera House Choir, the Terre Verdiane Orchestra and musicians and dancers from Jordan conducted by Massimo Taddia, and directed by Riccardo Canessa.
Zeina Barhoum, Founder of the Festival's vision for the Amman Opera Festival (AOF) is creating solid grounds for a new yet growing and sustainable opera culture in Jordan. AOF's educational program, "An Eye on Music in Education", which this year will be carried out through a workshop open for students, will be conducted as an eye opener on the importance of cultural literacy and the history of opera, assisting in turn in discovering new talent in the country interested in carrying out a career in the field as well as providing a platform for vocational opportunities for singers and individuals interested in pursuing a career in the performing arts and the world of opera.
After hosting La Traviata in 2017, La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini in 2018 at the Roman Theatre Downtown Amman and The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini in 2019 at the Cultural Palace, AOF is absolutely delighted to be hosting this year's opera selection at a theatre with natural acoustics accompanied by the orchestra in the theatre's orchestra pit. It has always been the festival's wish to one day witness the availability of a space Opera in Jordan can call home and it seems to have happened, finally, this year.
La Traviata is based on La Dame aux camélias, a play by Alexandre Dumas fils adapted from his own 1848 novel. It tells the story of Violetta, a celebrated courtesan who falls in love with a young bourgeois from a provincial family named Alfredo, all the while being haunted by her underlying fatal health issue.
The performances will take place on the 16th and 18th of November 2022 at Jordan's first functioning opera house and multi-purpose theatre, The Amman Academy Theatre, with doors opening at 6.30 and the opera starting at 8 PM -- and this is a Black Tie affair!
Barhoum herself is an award-winning opera singer and UNWFP advocate. In 2017, she founded the Amman Opera Festival, the first opera-focused festival in the Arab world under the patronage of HRH Princess Muna Al Hussein.
She has performed on some of the world’s most prestigious stages and venues including Kensington Palace, Hofburg Palace, Cadogan Hall, UNESCO Paris, Rimini Opera and at the Campidoglio in Italy, and several other venues in Austria, the UK, France, Ukraine, China, Jordan, the UAE and Lebanon. She has performed with several renowned artists that include Italian baritone and tutor Walter Alberti and Roberto Alagna, the acclaimed successor of Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli.
Barhoum represented Jordan on 6 continents for World Opera Day in 2020 in collaboration with Opera for Peace and UNESCO. She also represented Jordan in the classical music and pop genres in the Sound of the Xity Festival in which over 30 countries participated. The festival was organised by the government of the People’s Republic of China in 2020 and 2021.
She soon will be releasing a song in a musical feature film she wrote and composed titled Petra.
For tickets, check out the Amman Opera Festival website.
