The legend of Tristan and Isolde, one of the most romantic stories of the Middle Ages, is very old: it tells the adventures of a knight and a princess who fall in love thanks to a magic elixir. Wagner composed the opera based on Goffredo di Strasburgo’s text and staged it in 1865. It is still considered one of the masterpieces of all time. The version that will be performed, while maintaining the essential dramaturgical and musical lines intact, is adapted in such a way as to exalt the magical and symbolic fairy-tale aspects of the story, which has at its centre important themes linked to the imaginary and ideal horizon of the world of chivalry, such as the search for love, the relationship between public morality and private morality, sin and fidelity.

In 1600s Spain, a man fascinated by epic tales of chivalry and scornful of danger, imagines himself to be the knight Don Quixote committed, along with his squire Sancho Panza, to protect the people from injustice… starting from this incipit, author Miguel de Cervantes (played by Lollo Franco) will tell a new adventure of his characters, to the music of the 1746 intermezzo by Giovanni Battista Martini.

Frantz Samuele Di Leo (2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13) / Alfonso Zambuto (3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14)
Grittly Fabiola Galati (2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13) / Federica Foresta (3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14)
Berthold Giovanni Palminteri (2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13) / Nicola Ciancio (3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14)

Teatro Massimo Orchestra

A Teatro Massimo New Production

Frantz and Grittly are two young street artists from Tyrol on the route to Strasbourg. Why are they traveling? To visit and help Charlotte, Grittly’s sister, who has recently become a widower, after the alleged passing of her husband Bertoldo. Their encounter with a merchant called ‘U Venditor sweeps them up in a whirlwind of misunderstandings, promises, and lies: everything revolves around a lottery ticket, a symbol of easy (and deceptive) fortune. Amid laughter and twists and turns, the show invites us to reflect on how fragile dreams of wealth are and how solid human bonds and the truth of feelings are.