With its relentless dramatic continuum, Macbeth, Verdi’s early masterpiece and his tenth opera (premiered in Florence on 14 March 1847) rescued the composer from a creative crisis. In Macbeth Verdi created a successful synthesis of music and drama on which he was to guide himself from now on. Director Claude d’Anna and conductor Riccardo Chailly chose the version which Verdi prepared for Paris and was premiered there on 21 April 1865. As to the apparitions and supernatural aspects of the work, d’Anna says that he always “tried to find theatrical rather than cinematic solutions. … Solutions had to result from the work’s own symbolic logic, not simply from technology.”
Ciro in Babilonia
Gioachino Rossini was only 20 years old when he wrote his fifth opera, Ciro in Babilonia, for the Teatro Comunale Ferrara in 1812. In this production from the Rossini Opera Festival of Pesaro (Italy), stage director Davide Livermore sets the action in the 1920s, with period black-and-white film inserts, lavish costumes in the Art Nouveau style, and decors highlighted by “Babylonian” elements. The production was a wildly cheered hit with the audience.
Matilde Di Shabran
“There truly is a Rossini miracle!” (Deutschlandradio). Acclaiming the mastery of tenorissimo Juan Diego Flórez and the breathtaking young soprano Olga Peretyatko in the lead roles, the press hailed the premiere of Rossini’s Matilde di Shabran at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro as the “high point of the festival” (the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel).
Mosè in Egitto
From the prestigious Rossini Festival in Pesaro comes a thought-provoking interpretation of Rossini’s azione tragico-sacra “Mosè in Egitto”. Topping the cast of high-caliber vocalists are Sonia Ganassi and Dmitry Korchak as two lovers drawn into the political turmoil of their time. Director Graham Vick’s interpretation centers on a condemnation of all religious fundamentalism. Designed by Stuart Nunn, the set evokes a bombed-out edifice and provides a chilling setting for Rossini’s haunting melodies. With the gifted Roberto Abbado on the podium, “the music is free to carry its timeless message” (La Stampa).
Zelmira
The Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Rossini’s birthplace, is internationally renowned for its innovative stagings and musically impeccable productions of Rossini’s works. In this staging of the dramma per musica ‘Zelmira’, the Festival once again lays claim to this reputation. Stage director Giorgio Barberio Corsetti ‘delivers a production of great visual fascination and dramaturgical intelligence’ (Corriere della Sera). This rediscovery should help ‘Zelmira’ return to theaters everywhere.