Music Gianna Nannini is working on a pop opera about medieval aristocrats

Italian rock queen Gianna Nannini (70) plans to finish work on her "pop opera" next year. The work is dedicated to Pia de Tolomeis, a Tuscan noblewoman from the 13th century.

The tragic fate of Pia de Tolomeis is described in Dante's "Divine Comedy". Gaetano Donizetti had already composed an opera about Pia de Tolomei, but it is not one of the artist's best-known works.

Nannini's project was to have been produced by the well-known Italian opera manager David Zard. After his death in 2018, the opera project came to a standstill and Nannini now wants to resume it, she told the Milan daily newspaper "Corriere della Sera".

Zard had already financed Lucio Dallas' opera "Tosca" and enjoyed great success in Italy with the musical "Notre Dame de Paris". Nannini wants to sing most of the music herself. The director and the other singers have yet to be chosen.

The personality of Pia de Tolomei has always fascinated her, said Nannini recently. It is the story of a noblewoman who rejects the court of the cruel and powerful landowner Ghino di Tacco. He took revenge by turning her husband Nello against her. He imprisons Pia in a castle. There she dies of malaria before Ghino di Tacco regrets his gesture.

SDA