“Falstaff”, Verdi’s last opera, blends comedy and melancholy in a manner rarely found in an opera before or after it. With the complex interplay of many characters, it presents a challenge to every director. In this production from the Teatro Filarmonico di Verona, Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated film director Luca Guadagnino (“I am Love”) finds an ideal solution by bringing out the individuality of each figure through unmistakable traits. The performance features a strong cast of chiefly young Italian musicians, with the Orchestra dell’Arena di Verona under the spirited direction of Daniele Rustioni.
La Traviata
Hugo De Ana’s larger-than-life production of La Traviata is “compelling…a triumph,” (Opera Critic) when it fills the stage at the Arena di Verona, Italy. Albanian lyric soprano Ermonela Jaho, hailed as a “revelation” in the role of Violetta, is paired with Sardinian tenor Francesco Demuro as her impassioned lover, Alfredo.
New Year‘s Concert – Teatro la Fenice 2025
The Teatro La Fenice opened in 1792 and is one of the most renowned and most beautiful theaters in the world. “Amid mirrors, flowers and confetti, New Year’s Eve at La Fenice is a ritual” (MusicPaper). The Teatro Fenice’s Concerto di Capodanno – one of the world’s most celebrated New Year’s concerts – welcomes Daniel Harding back to the podium. After the monumental opening with Beethoven’s Fifth, soloists Mariangela Sicilia and Francesco Demuro perform beloved arias by Rossini, Leoncavallo, Puccini, Wolf-Ferrari, Bizet, Gounod and Verdi. Interwoven with the concert are scenes of Aterballetto dancers, choreographed by Marcos Morau, performing in Venice’s most iconic locations. The soloists’ “perfect vocal blend” in Libiamo ne’ lieti calici truly stands out (MusicPaper).
Falstaff
Falstaff is Verdi’s masterpiece of comic opera, in which the behaviour of the ageing Sir John Falstaff, a devious freeloader and would-be ladykiller, causes uproar in the petty-bourgeois household of the Windsor’s. In this performance stage and film director Mario Martone updates the action to the present day and shows Falstaff as ageing rebel in dodgy sideburns and leather jacket. Among the “exquisit vocal cast” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), Michael Volle gives his debut in the title role “with masterly dynamic shadings” (Financial Times) and “as if he had been preparing for this role for a lifetime.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) while “Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin are tickling out all the wit and all the momentum from this score.” (Online Merker)
Tutto Verdi – The Operas Vol. 2, 1847 – 1853
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.
Belcanto D´Amore (Aida, La Traviata, Madama Butterfly, Rigoletto, Turandot)
AIDA
Iano Tamar, Iain Paterson,
Tatiana Serjan, Rubens
Pellizzari
Vienna Symphonic Orchestra
Carlo Rizzi
Staged by Graham Vick
MADAMA BUTTERFLY
Raffaela Angeletti
Nino Batatunashvili
Annunziato Vestri
Fondatione Orchestra
Regionale Delle Marche
Daniele Callegari
Staged by Pier Luigi Pizzi
TURANDOT
Maria Guleghina, Marco Berti,
Javier Agulló
Orquestra de la Comunitat
Valenciana
Zubin Metha
Staged by Chen Kaige
LA TRAVIATA
Svetla Vassileva, Massimo
Giordano, Valdimir Stoyanov
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro
Regio di Parma
Yuri Temirkanov
Staged by Karl-Ernst & Ursel
Herrmann
RIGOLETTO
Francesco Demuro, Leo Nucci
Nino Machaidze, Marco Spotti
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro
Regio di Parma
Massimo Zanetti
Staged by Stefano Vizioli
Don Pasquale
“Don Pasquale” is, along with “L’elisir d’amore” and “La fille du régiment,” one of the three musical comedies by Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) that still rank highly in today’s operatic repertoire. In this production “full of energy and with a stellar cast” (La Repubblica), the celebrated Italian comedian, actor, writer and cabaretist Antonio Albanese brings all of his wit and spirit into play. He judiciously combines a bittersweet depiction of amorous relations and the liberating laughter that brings us back down to earth!