Peer Gynt as musical theater at Reggio Parma Festival 2023

At the Reggio Parma Festival 2023, Fondazione Teatro Due di Parma staged Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt with Edvard Grieg's music, directed by Daniele Abbado and conducted by Marco Seco. The production, performed at Arena Shakespeare, features LaFil Filarmonica di Milano and a cast including Pavel Zelinskiy as Peer, Elisabetta Mazzullo as Solveig, Valentina Banci as Peer's mother, and Massimiliano Sbarsi as the Button Molder. Costumes by Giada Masi evoke 1970s Swinging London punk. Abbado and Seco's adaptation eliminates the original chorus but maintains a constant dramatic dialogue between actors and orchestra, exemplifying a contemporary Gesamtkunstwerk. The famous "Morning" piece provides an unexpected counterpoint to a tense scene. Ibsen wrote the play in 1867 while in Ischia and Sorrento, Italy; Grieg composed 90 minutes of music for the 1874 edition.