Daisi, one of the most popular productions of the professional Georgian opera scene, celebrated its first performance in Italy, when the show was staged at Catania’s Teatro Massimo Bellini to mark the international Music Festival.

Staged on the 100th anniversary of its first premiere, and in a collaboration between the venue and the Tbilisi Opera and Ballet State Theatre, the production was brought to the event marking the “universal language” of music for enabling “different cultural identities meet and [have] dialogue”, the Catania-based theatre said.

Based on playwright Valerian Gunia’s work, the 3-act drama bought to the Catania venue its plot of a love triangle on the backdrop of a foreign invasion, as staged by director Gocha Kapanadze and with stage and costume design by Giorgi Aleksi-Meskhishvili, who also worked on the lighting.

The show involved the Teatro Massimo Bellini chorus and orchestra under the baton of conductor Zaza Azmaiparashvili, along with a cast of Italian opera names joined by the Georgian bass George Andguladze.