On December 19, the French premiere of La bella dormente nel bosco, an opera by Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936), will be performed at the Théatre Municipal in Colmar.

The libretto, by Gian Bistolfi, is based on Charles Perrault's fairy tale, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. The work reveals Respighi's compositional versatility and sharp sense of humour, shifting between extreme sincerity and subtle parody.

In three short acts, he intertwines elements of the comic, the fantastic and the sentimental, and presents natural sounds of birdsong, several dance forms and dramatic moments for spoken voice. Written for Vittorio Podrecca's puppet theatre company Teatro dei Piccoli, La bella dormente nel bosco was first staged at the Teatro Odescalchi in Rome in 1922. Respighi revised the score in 1933 for a larger orchestra and adapted the work for mime performed by children.

Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg will perform this final version in Colmar in December and then in Strasbourg, Paris and Mulhouse in January. The libretto has been translated into French for this production.

Ottorino Respighi: work list