Coppola, who won an Academy award for “Lost in Translation”, is putting on her first opera with Giuseppe Verdi's romantic tragedy at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma from May 24th.
The 44-year-old daughter of director Francis Ford Coppola has joined forces with production designer Nathan Crowley, who was nominated for an Oscar for “The Dark Knight” as well as “Interstellar” and “The Prestige”.
Coppola was picked to direct the opera after showing “a particular aesthetic and musical sensibility, balanced between the classical and modern” in her historical film drama “Marie Antoinette”, the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma said in a statement.
For fashion designer Valentino, who has dressed stars including Jennifer Lopez and Keira Knightley, making the costumes for Violetta, Traviata's main character, was “a dream come true”, the statement said.
Traviata, based on an 1848 novel by Alexandre Dumas, tells the story of a courtesan who is wooed by a young provincial bourgeois and persuaded to abandon her wild life, until her fiance's father attempts to break up the couple.
The Roman theatre has been attempting a revival after a series of damaging orchestra and chorus strikes over the past few years, fuelled by financial problems as Italy suffered its deepest recession since World War II.
OPERA
Sofia Coppola to direct first opera in Rome
US director Sofia Coppola is teaming up with the British designer behind the Batman trilogy for a new production of the Italian opera "La Traviata", with costumes by fashion king Valentino.
PROTESTS
Thousands protest in Rome against fascist groups after green pass riots
An estimated 200,000 people descended on Rome on Saturday to call for a ban on fascist-inspired groups, after protests over Italy's health pass system last weekend degenerated into riots.
Carrying placards reading “Fascism: Never Again”, the protesters in Piazza San Giovanni — a square historically associated with the left — called for a ban on openly neofascist group Forza Nuova (FN).
FN leaders were among those arrested after the Rome headquarters of the CGIL trade union — Italy’s oldest — was stormed on October 9th during clashes outside parliament and in the historic centre.
Analysis: What’s behind Italy’s anti-vax protests and neo-fascist violence?
“This is not just a retort to fascist ‘squadrismo’,” CGIL secretary general Maurizio Landini said, using a word used to refer to the fascist militias that began operating after World War I.
IN PICTURES: Demonstrators and far right clash with police in Rome after green pass protest
“This piazza also represents all those in Italy who want to change the country, who want to close the door on political violence,” he told the gathered crowds.
Last weekend’s riots followed a peaceful protest against the extension to all workplaces of Italy’s “Green Pass”, which shows proof of vaccination, a negative Covid-19 test or recent recovery from the virus.
The violence has focused attention on the country’s fascist legacy.
Saturday’s demonstration was attended by some 200,000 people, said organisers, with 800 coaches and 10 trains laid on to bring people to the capital for the event.
It coincided with the 78th anniversary of the Nazi raid on the Jewish Ghetto in Rome.
Over 1,000 Jews, including 200 children, were rounded up at dawn on October 16th, 1943, and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
“Neofascist groups have to be shut down, right now. But that has to be just the start: we need an antifascist education in schools,” university student Margherita Sardi told AFP.
READ ALSO: Covid green pass: How are people in Italy reacting to the new law for workplaces?
The centre-left Democratic Party, which has led the calls for FN to be banned, said its petition calling on parliament to do so had gathered 100,000 signatures.
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