Simon Boccanegra
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
None of Verdi’s other operas was subjected to as radical a series of revisions as Simon Boccanegra. The initial version of 1857 was not a success, so that in 1880/81 Verdi not only rewrote large sections of the score but together with his new librettist Arrigo Boito also reworked the libretto. The result was a sombre work full of overwhelming sound pictures. This second version proved a great and lasting success.
Un ballo in maschera
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
In 1792 King Gustaf III of Sweden was shot at a masked ball, and this was the starting point for Verdi’s
Un ballo in maschera. But before the opera could be performed in Rome in 1859, the composer had to deal with a whole series of problems with the censor. It was only when the action was moved to Boston and all reference to real-life figures removed that the work could be launched on its triumphant career.
Best of Verdi Arias
La traviata
1. È strano! È strano! … Ah, fors’è lui … Sempre libera
2. Lunge da lei … De’ miei bollenti spiriti
3. Di Provenza il mar, il suol
Rigoletto
4. Questa o quella
5. Gualtier Maldè … Caro nome che il mio cor
6. Cortigiani, vil razza dannata
7. La donna è mobile
Don Carlo
8. Fontainebleau! … Io la vidi e al suo sorriso
9. Ah, più mai non vedrò la regina! … O don fatale
Aida
10. Se quel guerrier io fossi! … Celeste Aida
11. Ritorna vincitor! … Numi, pietà del mio soffrir!
Luisa Miller
12. Quando le sere al placido
Il trovatore
13. Stride la vampa!
14. Ah! Sì, ben mio … L’onda de’ suoni mistici … Di quella pira
I vespri siciliani
15. Mercé, dilette amiche
Un ballo in maschera
16. Forse la soglia attinse … Ma se m’è forza perderti
La forza del destino
17. Pace! Pace, mio Dio!
18. La vita è inferno all’infelice … O tu che in seno agli angeli
Otello
19. Piangea cantando nell’erma landa … Ave Maria, piena di grazia
20. Niun mi tema
Salzburg Festival 2017: Aida
“Passionate and unconditionally dedicated” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), Anna Netrebko makes her role debut as Aida at the Salzburg Festival, joined by Francesco Meli as Radamès and Ekaterina Semenchuk as her rival Amneris. In the pit: no other than Verdi expert Riccardo Muti, “our finest Verdi conductor” who “creates effects you didn’t quite think possible” (NY Times). This Aida is the first opera staging by award-winning Iranian film-maker, photographer and video artist Shirin Neshat, known for her critical examinations of gender roles and religious fundamentalism. “Lyric sensitivity and searing power – Ms. Netrebko is ready for Aida!” (New York Times)
Salzburg Festival: Verdi, Il Trovatore
“Anna Netrebko – better than Maria Callas” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) – Since her sensational success in “La Traviata” the soprano Anna Netrebko, now even more popular than ever before, returns regularly to the great festival hall at the Salzburg Festival. This time she shines as Leonora in Giuseppe Verdi’s tragic opera “Il Trovatore” at the side of Placido Domingo and the critics go wild: “A triumph” writes the New York Times, while the Neue Zürcher Zeitung speaks of “truly divine sounds”. Alvis Hermanis staged the plot that revolves round two rival brothers who love the same woman and only learn they are related at the moment of her death, using sets that “in their opulent adherence to detail and fantastically illuminated atmosphere (…) offer much more than just a decorative sight for sore eyes“ (Salzburger Nachrichten).
Anna Bolena
Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca pair their glorious voices in an upcoming recording of Gaetano Donizetti’s opera “Anna Bolena” from the Wiener Staatsoper. It is Netrebko’s highly anticipated role debut as Anna Bolena. She and fellow soprano Garanca, who portrays her lady of honor Giovanna Seymour, form a fateful triangle with baritone Ildebrando D’Arcangelo as Enrico VIII. Intrigue, betrayal and passion keynote the action of this dramatic bel canto work that also stars Elisabet Kulman as Smeton and Francesco Meli as Lord Riccardo Percy. Conducting the Orchestra of the Wiener Staatsoper is Evelino Pidò. Stage director is Eric Génovèse, whose recent production of Liebermann’s “Die Schule der Frauen” in Bordeaux earned him great acclaim.
Verdi, Un Ballo in Maschera
The 2014 Festival of the Arena di Verona is opened by the new stage design of the Verdi’s opera Un ballo in maschera by one of Italy’s great directors, Pier Luigi Pizzi, and conducted by Andrea Battistoni, a rising young talent in the intenational classical music scene.