Luisa Miller

“Eduard Topchyan, the conductor and production director, shares his thoughts: 'The opera Luisa Miller has been a part of my life for a long time. In my youth, I was friends with the renowned Armenian tenor Gegham Grigoryan. He would sometimes call me in the evenings, inviting me over. He lived nearby, so within minutes, we'd be sitting together, discussing operas - him, the star, and me, the aspiring conductor. One day, Gegham said, “You know, I have a wonderful gift for you." To my surprise, he took three volumes of the Luisa Miller score off the shelf, adding that it was something truly special...
I'm a huge admirer of Verdi's music. I've dedicated my life to studying his repertoire, conducting fourteen out of his twenty-six operas, and I practically know them all by heart. When I was offered the chance to stage Luisa Miller, I hadn't truly explored it and assumed it wasn't one of Verdi's most magnificent works. But thanks to the Bolshoi Theatre's invitation, I fully immersed myself in this music and appreciated the gift that fate had bestowed upon me. Now, I can confidently say: Luisa Miller is one of Verdi's most beautiful operas, marking the beginning of his renowned middle period, when his most popular operas were composed. Yes, there were very good works before Luisa: Ernani, I due Foscari, the not entirely perfect Macbeth, but in them, we still hear the “early Verdi.” On the other hand, the late period is the time of great operas that connoisseurs probably value the most: Otello, Falstaff. Among my favorite operas is the second version of Simon Boccanegra, also created during that time. The middle period, however, is the era when the most popular, most frequently performed works were written. In this sense, Luisa is truly something special. It doesn't just foreshadow the future; it instantly reveals a completely different, new Verdi. He's no longer the author of heroic dramas like Nabucco or The Battle of Legnano. This is a new composer, capable of captivating both connoisseurs and the general public with his subtlety and expressiveness, without losing accessibility. In Luisa Miller, we already strongly sense the beauty that distinguishes Rigoletto, La traviata, and Il trovatore, but there are also stunning episodes that Verdi never wrote again: almost the entire third act, the amazing episode with the organ.
The opera is incredibly successful not only in its details but also as a whole: it's compact, cohesive, there's not a single superfluous note. Verdi here is both an innovator and a successor to the traditions of bel canto composers, although for me personally, both Bellini and Donizetti are composers who were born so that Verdi could follow them. In Luisa Miller, you can clearly hear how Verdi masterfully creates ensembles with stunning musical unity, where each character is unique, endowed with their own special mood and thoughts.
The orchestration is wonderful; it evolves compared to his earlier operas. The orchestra is noticeable not only in the brilliant overture: throughout the entire opera, it creates color and mood, guiding us through the series of events. Although it lacks complexity, everything sounds so honest and clear that nothing else is needed. Verdi is like Tchaikovsky: simultaneously profound and accessible, capable of achieving a lot with minimal means. His orchestral and vocal colors allow the listener, even without knowing the libretto or understanding the language, to accurately feel what's happening and even see in the music what's unfolding: the dead of night, a sunny day, or falling rain. Verdi is remarkably skilled at conveying the mood of a scene, the character of a personage: the voices of all the characters are chosen very precisely.
Verdi creates the images of the protagonists so inventively that from the first sound, you hear all of Miller's paternal tenderness, all of Walter's expressiveness, all the subtlety of Luisa's character (this is a very complex role, requiring a lot of skill and a delicate sense of the music), all of Rodolfo's power, all of Wurm's incredible character... I hope the audience will appreciate all the expressiveness of the production and be able to fully enjoy the treasures of Luisa Miller.”
Prepared by Yulia Bederova