Aida

Originally commissioned to celebrate the completion of the Suez Canal and the opening of Cairo’s new opera house, Verdi’s Egyptian epic Aida is here seen in a spectacular new staging specially mounted by the Teatro Regio Torino to celebrate the re-opening of Turin’s historic Museo Egizio, home to the world’s largest collection of Egyptian antiquities outside of the Cairo Museum. Conducted by the Teatro Regio’s Music Director, Gianandrea Noseda – one of the world’s finest Verdians and Musical America’s Conductor of the Year 2015 – Turin’s authentically Egyptian staging is directed in true Hollywood style by the Oscar-winning American film director William Friedkin, creator of such famous movies as “The Exorcist” and “The French Connection”. Amongst the first-rate cast, critics singled out the American soprano Kristin Lewis, who exhibits “a remarkable voice, which she uses with powerful dramatic instinct” (La Stampa), and the Georgian mezzosoprano Anita Rachvelishvili, whose Amneris “dominates the stage with her dark, rounded, irrestistible voice and extraordinary stage presence” (La Gazzetta Musicale).

Aida

Probably no opera oeuvre and opera house has become more synonymous than Aida and the Arena di Verona: Verdi’s monumental most famous and most played opera established the Arena di Verona as an opera festival venue nearly 100 years ago. Since then, the Arena with its gigantic stage dimensions and its historic charm of a 2,000-year-old roman amphitheatre set in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, has staged Verdi’s masterpiece more than 500 times. As a showpiece in the repertoire Aida is a challenge to the vocal, musical and dramatic means of every opera house. The tragic love story with a political background is ideal for a performance at the Arena. The vast space of the amphitheater provides a magnificent decoration, as would be typical for an epic film. At the center of the spectacle are the singers, the elaborate scenery and the unique atmosphere of the Arena with 20,000 seats. Responsible for the staging of this production is director Gianfranco de Bosio who revives the original production from 1913. Daniel Oren, the experienced and highly estimated Maestro of the Arena for almost 30 years, conducts the Orchestra…. Chinese soprano Hui He is in the lead role of Aida, Hungarian mezzo Andrea Ulbrich her rival Amneris, Italian tenor Marco Berti Aida’s beloved Ramadès and Italian baritone Ambrogio Maestri Aida’s father Amonasro. The Opera was produced in standard High Definition 1080 as well as in 3D.

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

Don Carlo

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

Based on Schiller‘s play of the same name, Don Carlos was written for the Paris Opéra in 1865–66 in the tradition of a French grand opera. Repeatedly revised and performed in Italian as Don Carlo, the opera is seen here in the version that Verdi prepared for Modena in 1886. In many respects, this is Verdi’s most ambitious and most forward-looking work.

I vespri siciliani

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

Not until 1855 did Verdi have a chance to try his hand at the genre of French grand opera. A setting of a libretto by Eugène Scribe, Les Vêpres siciliennes proved a success in Paris despite the problematical nature of its subject matter, which deals with the Sicilian uprising against occupying French forces in Palermo in 1282. Today, the opera is usually given in the Italian version of 1861 as I Vespri siciliani.