Rigoletto

TUTTO VERDI – this edition to mark the Verdi bicentenary sets standards by which all similar projects will be judged. It includes all twenty-six operas by the greatest Italian stage composer, together with his immortal Requiem, all of them in definitive performances. “This is how Verdi should be played” – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on TUTTO VERDI

For Verdi, Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s’amuse was “arguably the greatest drama of the present day“. But many of his contemporaries were scandalized by this tale of corpses, jesters, cripples and a king addicted to venal love. And yet this no doubt helps to explain why Rigoletto turned out to be Verdi’s second great success and laid the foundations for his emergence as Italy’s leading opera composer.

Luisa Miller

Giuseppe Verdi’s Luisa Miller is an opera in three acts based on Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love). Just before Christmas 2012, it was recorded at the Malmö Opera, the leading opera house in the expansive region of Öresund in Sweden. Luisa Miller is the story of the lovers Luisa and Rodolfo. Their love is challenged by class distinctions between their families. Despite the couple’s struggle, the story eventually ends in inevitable tragedy. The Russian opera singer and rising star Olesya Golovneva is breathtaking as Luisa and the Swedish Expressen writes that Luc Robert as Rodolfo “is a gold treasure from Canada. A real tenor!” Conducted by internationally acclaimed Michael Güttler, who works for opera houses and orchestras all over the world, including the Orchestre de Paris and the Wiener Staatsoper, this opera is a must have’.