Discussion with the Creative Team for the Opera Rita

In the lead-up to the performance of the opera Rita live at HKUST, the artistic team comes to discuss their approach to staging an opera in Hong Kong and reviving this forgotten Romantic classic. This rarely heard one-act opera by Gaetano Donizetti received its Asian premiere with the same artists in November and was featured on RTHK TV. 

Rita is a delicious farce in the best traditions of Italian opera buffa. It was written at the end of Donizetti’s life while he was living in Paris. Donizetti’s music and Gustave Vaëz’s French libretto result is an Italian take on French opéra-comique with a story so familiar that it could be set anywhere — even Hong Kong!