Tosca

It‘s an event that draws many thousands of music lovers to Verona every summer: the opera season at the ancient Roman Arena. One of the highlights of the 2006 season was the riveting production of Puccini‘s “Tosca“ by Argentine director Hugo de Ana. Nearly 15,000 spectators regularly filled the amphitheater for the performances of the Puccini favorite with a stellar cast – Fiorenza Cedolins, Marcelo Álvarez and Ruggero Raimondi – under the baton of Daniel Oren. “An altogether perfect staging, with the director exploiting to the fullest the vast space of the amphitheater and designing grandiose scenes and magnificent costumes,“ wrote Italian daily Corriere della Sera

Tosca

A superlative staging of Puccini’s Tosca by Italian opera producer Hugo de Ana brought to you from the world-famous Arena di Verona and complete with all the splendour that a Puccini opera demands! The popular tragedy is sung by a dream team cast of excellent singer-actors and conducted by long-established Arena di Verona conductor Daniel Oren.

The recording captures one of those special Verona summer evenings, when the audience fills the historic circle in expectation of the enjoyment of an open-air opera performance. Verona’s amphitheatre, known as the ‘arena’, provides an atmospheric setting for the summer festival. To view an opera in the former amphitheatre, the second largest of its kind after the Colosseum in Rome, can truly be regarded as an impressive experience. The TV transmission, however, provides a closer look at the stage and the singers and brings this dramatic opera directly to the home viewer.

Tutto Verdi – The Complete Operas

Operas: Oberto, Un giorno di regno, Nabucco, I Lombardi, Ernani, I due Foscari, Giovanna d´Arco, Alzira, Attila, Macbeth, I masnadieri, Il corsaro, La Battaglia di Legnano, Luisa Miller, Stiffelio, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, I vespri siciliani, Simon Boccanegra, Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino, Don Carlo, Aida, Otello, Falstaff. “This is how Verdi should be played.” FAZ Including all 26 Verdi Operas + Requiem + BONUS: 10 mins introductions of each opera + documentary “Verdi´s Backyard” + booklet 280 pages

Tutto Verdi Highlights

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

Tutto Verdi – The Complete Operas

Tutto Verdi – for the first time all 26 operas are available on DVD and Blu-ray in HD and Surround Sound.

“This is how Verdi should be played.” FAZ

Donizetti: Maria Stuarda

Maria Stuarda is the most popular work in Gaetano Donizetti´s triology of bel canto operas on Tudor queens, a triology that also includes Anna Bolena and Roberto Devereux. The production of Venice´s beautiful Teatro La Fenice, which was gloriously rebuilt after the fire of 1996, shows Queen Mary and her embittered foe Elizabeth both as prisoners of passion for the same man, trapped in a labyrinth that is the central set-element in Italian-based Franco-Tunisian director Denis Krief´s staging. “To conjure up… hatred and jealousy, you don´t need a stage setting, just two splendid prima donnas: Sonia Ganassi and Fiorenza Cedolins.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

Tutto Verdi: Simon Boccanegra, Luisa Miller, Giovanna d’Arco, Il Corsaro, I Lombardi alla prima crociata, Nabucco, I due Foscari, Un giorno di regno

On the occasion of the 200th birthday of Giuseppe Verdi in 2013 one of the most important opera houses in Italy, The Teatro Regio in Parma, performes Verdi’s complete operas. As co-producer of this project, Unitel presents the operas in High Definition including 5.1 sound. An exceptional and unique project to honour the great composer! Already available are: ‘Simon Boccanegra’ (155′), ‘Luisa Miller’ (146′), ‘Giovanna d’Arco’ (130′), ‘Il Corsaro’ (90′),’ I Lombardi alla prima crociata’ (130′),’ Nabucco’ (132′),’ I due Foscari’ (114′), ‘Un giorno di regno’ (120′)

Salzburg Festival 2013: Verdi, Falstaff

Italian director Damiano Michieletto put on his Falstaff for the Salzburg Festival in the present-day “Casa Verdi”, a retirement home for elderly musicians Verdi founded at the time of the composition of this opera. As Falstaff Amborgio Maestri, who has played the role in 19 new productions so far. “His physique is just right for the part, as are his powerful voice, flair for drama and feeling for the Verdi style.” (New York Times) He is joined by soprano Fiorenza Cedolins as Alice Ford, the mezzo-soprano Stephanie Houtzeel as Meg Page and mezzo-soprano Elisabeth Kulman as Mrs. Quickly. Zubin Mehta leads the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Maria Stuarda

‘Maria Stuarda’, the tragedy of the Stuart Queen Mary and her embittered foe Elizabeth, is the most popular work in Donizetti’s trilogy of bel canto operas on Tudor queens (next to ‘Anna Bolena’ and ‘Roberto Devereux’). The production of Venice’s Teatro La Fenice shows Maria and Elisabetta both as prisoners, trapped in a labyrinth that is the central set element in Italian-based Franco-Tunisian director Denis Krief’s staging. With his sharp and lively conducting, Fabrizio Maria Carminati puts the Orchestra of the Teatro La Fenice entirely at the service of three exceptional singers, Sonia Ganassi (‘an extraordinary performance,’ Opera Today) as Elisabetta, Fiorenza Cedolins (‘colorful, nuanced, highly dramatic heroine,’ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) as Maria Stuarda, and José Bros as a passionate Leicester. The recording was made at Venice’s beautiful Teatro La Fenice, rebuilt after the fire that destroyed it in 1996.