Italian veteran gets into the act in La Gioconda

Pier Luigi Pizzi, Italian opera director, and set and costume designer.[Photo by Jiang Dong/ China Daily]

As an early afternoon rehearsal in a vast studio at the National Center for the Performing Arts gets underway, a tall, gray-haired man shows up, grabbing everyone's attention. The man, wearing a bright yellow scarf, sits down and then addresses the assembled actors.

"We're going to do the first act, the Carnival of Venice," he says.

Pier Luigi Pizzi, Italian opera director, and set and costume designer, is in Beijing, working an elaborate new production of La Gioconda, which will be staged at the NCPA in Beijing Jan 27-31.

Over the past 60 years, Pizzi has embraced the entire history of opera－from baroque to the present day－by working with major theaters and at prominent festivals around world.

At 85, he shows no sign of slowing down. This is his first trip to China and the first time he is working with a Chinese production team. As the director of the opera, Pizzi controls everything－from stage to costume design.

"I like traveling to new places and working at new venues with young artists. I feel energetic and young when I am working," Pizzi tells China Daily.

The story is about a love triangle involving Gioconda, her lover Enzo and her rival Laura. Gioconda has to sacrifice her relationship with Enzo because Laura saves her blind mother. Then, facing seduction by the villain Barnaba, Gioconda kills herself.

According to Wei Lanfen, director of artistic administration of the NCPA, the NCPA Orchestra and Chorus under the baton of conductor Daniel Oren will perform at the show, which marks the opening of the NCPA's 2016 opera season. It took around two years to put the La Gioconda production together.

Though Pizzi has directed the opera several times before, including the version at the outdoor Arena di Verona in 2005, he feels that his current assignment is a new adventure. He has also has made some adjustments for the opera's China debut.

For example, while the original version of the opera is set in 17th-century Venice, in the latest production Pizzi sets the story at the end of the 18th century, when Venice, the once-dominant power in the Mediterranean, suffered economic decline.

Pizzi has also designed the costumes with two main colors: black, which represents death, and red, which represents passion and romance.

"When it comes to opera, telling a good story is always my priority.

"For Chinese audiences, who may not be familiar with Venice of the end of the 18th century, I try to make it convincing," he says, adding that he prefers a dreamlike stage setting set rather than a realistic style.

He admits that he didn't like the story of La Gioconda when he first encountered it because he is much more drawn to baroque operas. However, he was gradually drawn to it as he threw himself into the opera as its director, and set and consume designer.