Gianni Schicchi

(Eine Ballnacht)

Opernhaus Zürich | Theater Winterthur 2026

Giacomo Puccini
Giovacchino Forzano

weitere Musik von Johann Strauss, Franz Lehár, Emmerich Kálmán und Giuseppe Verdi

Team

Conductor: Ustina Dubitsky
Director: Lilli Fischer

Set Design: Danila Travin
Costumes: Mahshad Safaei
Choreography: Mlindi Kulashe

Dramaturgy: Fabio Dietsche
Light Design: Dino Strucken

Cast

Gianni Schicchi: Steffan Lloyd Owen
Lauretta: Marie Lombard
Zita: Cashlin Oostindië
Rinuccio: Tomislav Jukic
Gherardo: Salvador Villanueva
Nella: Thalia Cook-Hansen
Betto: Evan Gray
Simone: Lobel Barun
Marco: Guram Margvelashvili
Ciesca: Natália Tuznik
Maestro Spinelloccio: Max Bell
Ser Amantio di Nicolao: Felix Gygli
Buoso: Karima El Demerdasch
Una donna: Maria Stella Maurizi

What happens when a family's carefully built world begins to fall apart?

Puccini's Gianni Schicchi opens in the hours after Buoso Donati's death, with the family's grief giving way almost at once to a fight over his inheritance. I wanted to know who they were before everything started to unravel, so I gave them a prologue of their own: Eine Ballnacht, a decadent party hosted by Buoso Donati himself, set to music by Puccini, Strauss, Lehár, Kálmán and Verdi.

The ball shows the world the Donatis are about to lose: their status, their rituals, their sense of belonging. Everything they fight over in the opera is already there in that ballroom. Only here, they still have it. Buoso stands at its centre, and the society around him looks stable, even untouchable.

By the time the opera begins, only the shell of that world is left. The masks have fallen, and what looks like farce from the outside is, for the Donatis, a desperate fight for survival: people doing whatever it takes because everything that defines them is at stake. What interests me is not the comedy on the surface, but the fear underneath it. In the end, everyone loses, including, perhaps especially, the ones who think they have won.

Reviews

Lilli Fischer's work as director is coherent through and through, and frankly a joy. There is not a dull or uninspired moment in it: this is theatre that is funny, turbulent, and full of invention, yet never overplayed – simply first-rate.

– Oper Aktuell
(translated from German)

The music, singing, acting and set all came together seamlessly. Dynamic narration, comedic timing and a joy of performing drove the show.
– Seen and Heard International

What distinguishes the production is a gift for detail, observed with such originality, care and wit that it casts a spell. It is entertaining, it draws smiles — but beneath the brilliant comedy lurks a cynically sharp eye for human baseness.