L’amore dei tre re by Italo Montemezzi, is a story of love and domination, with a libretto by Sem Benelli that seems to anticipate surrealism and music of enormous emotional effectiveness. The opera tells the story of a woman, Fiora, prisoner of a brutal society and besieged by men who degrade her to a mere object. Deprived of her dignity as a human being, Fiora is forced to marry the son of the powerful usurper king, which plunges her into a psychological turmoil from which there seems to be no escape. The staging, a labyrinth of chains and stairs that generate a space designed to be sculpted with light, proposes a universe as rigid as iron, but passable as fog or a dream.

After its premiere at La Scala in Milan in 1913 conducted by Tullio Serafin, the opera was performed at the Metropolitan in New York by Toscanini, and returned to Milan for the last time in 1953 with Victor de Sabata.

Compositor: Italo Montemezzi
Libreto: Sem Benelli

Conductor: Pinchas Steinberg

Staging: Àlex Ollé
Sets: Alfons Flores
Costumes: Lluc Castells
Lights: Marco Filibeck
Casts:

Archibaldo: Evgeny Stavinsky

Manfredo: Roman Burdenko

Avito: Giorgio Berrugi

Flaminio: Giorgio Misseri

Un giovanetto: Andrea Tanzillo*

A child + inner voice: Treble voice**

Fiora: Chiara Isotton

Handmaiden: Fan Zhou*

*Students of the Teatro alla Scala Academy
**Treble voices Chorus of the Teatro alla Scala Academy

L’amore dei tre re, a tragic poem with libretto by Sem Benelli, set in a medieval Italy beset by barbarian invasions, is the best known work by Italo Montemezzi, who rose to fame thanks to his acclaim among the leading conductors of the time.

Renders of L’amore dei tre re by Alfons Flores