This opera was filmed live at La Scala in 1992. The all-star cast includes Luciano Pavarotti, Samuel Ramey, aolo Coni, Daniela Dessi, Luciana d'Intio, and Alexander Anismov. Riccardo Muti conducts.
Rodrigo, Marchese di Posa
Il Grande Inquisitore
Un frate
Tebaldo
This opera was filmed live at La Scala in 1992. The all-star cast includes Luciano Pavarotti, Samuel Ramey, aolo Coni, Daniela Dessi, Luciana d'Intio, and Alexander Anismov. Riccardo Muti conducts.
1992-12-01
0
An Egyptian military commander, Radamès, struggles to choose between his love for the enslaved Ethiopian princess Aida, and his loyalty to the Pharaoh. To complicate the story further, the Pharaoh's daughter Amneris is in love with Radamès, although he does not return her feelings.
A Victor Hugo play, haunting and scandalous, provided the inspiration for Verdi’s mid-career masterpiece. A vengeful but misguided court jester strives to save his daughter from a duke’s licentious clutches, but can't part with the feeling that a curse looms over all of his actions. In Rigoletto, the composer introduces several of his most iconic arias and duets—as well as an 11th-hour quartet that counts among the finest moments in opera.
Part of Tutto Verdi series - Nabucco (2009) Parma. NABUCCO was Verdi’s third work for the stage and proved his first great success when performed in 1842. It deals with the Hebrew’s attempts to break free from the yoke of their Babylonian oppressors and is nowadays numbered among Verdi’s most popular works, not least on account of its famous Chorus of Hebrew Slaves, which has one of the best-loved melodies in the whole history of opera.
Screen adapatation of Mozart's greatest opera. Don Giovanni, the infamous womanizer, makes one conquest after another until the ghost of Donna Anna's father, the Commendatore, (whom Giovanni killed) makes his appearance. He offers Giovanni one last chance to repent for his multitudinious improprieties. He will not change his ways So, he is sucked down into hell by evil spirits. High drama, hysterical comedy, magnificent music!
Inspired by Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz, the film opera Hunter's Bride traces the romantic rivalry between two veterans of the Napoleonic Wars who each vie for the heart of the same woman.
Part of Tutto Verdi series - Macbeth (2006) Parma. Macbeth is one of the most multi-layered, profound and demanding roles that Verdi ever wrote for a baritone and the Italian singer Leo Nucci is arguably the most distinguished in his field. The role has repeatedly brought him lasting success and he enacts it with an intensity that only the very experienced stage personality can muster. French singer Sylvie Valayre is known for her versatile interpretations of spinto and dramatic coloratura soprano parts, especially for particularly gruelling roles like Lady Macbeth. Supported by Italian bass Enrico Iori as Banco and tenor Roberto Iuliano as Macduff, they make up a wonderful cast under the baton of Bruno Bartoletti, musical director of the Teatro Regio di Parma.
The innocent Candide discovers that human beings aren't all they are cracked up to be and ultimately focuses on building his own life on his own terms.
A meditation on the female body as a source of both power and pain that focuses on the tragic figure of renowned American-Greek opera singer Maria Callas (1923-77), whose stunning soprano voice captivated audiences around the world in the mid-20th century while her life was wracked by scandal and personal suffering.
Don Carlo (1980) Metropolitan Opera. Verdi / italian. King Philip's court is plagued by rebels, family squabbles and intrigue. The Spanish Inquisition tries to exert its influence. The tension finally ignites at the King's coronation, where heretics are to be burned at the stake
A groundbreaking production of Verdi's masterpiece and its first video recording. Recorded live in Florence in 1977.
Part of Tutto Verdi series - Attila (2010) Parma. 'Attila' is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the 1809 play 'Attila, König der Hunnen' ('Attila, King of the Huns') by Zacharias Werner. The opera received its first performance at La Fenice in Venice on 17 March 1846.
Part of Tutto Verdi series - Ernani (2005) Parma. 'Ernani' is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play 'Hernani' by Victor Hugo. Ernani was first performed on 9 March 1844 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.
Part of Tutto Verdi series - Falstaff (2011) Parma. 'Falstaff' is an opera in three acts by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901). The libretto was adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's 'The Merry Wives of Windsor' and scenes from 'Henry IV, parts 1 and 2'. The work premiered on 9 February 1893 at La Scala, Milan
This work predates Thchaikowsly’s for almost 4 years, and it is base don the Schiller play I have previously criticized for its lack of historical accuracy. It is essentially focused on three major voices, soprano, tenor and baritone, with a basso to spice it up. New Yorker Evan Bowers may not be a matinee idol, but he sails into the role with a bright, focused lyrico spinto tenor voice. Renato Bruson was 72 years old in 2008, when he took this role (first sung by him in1989) and it shows, with quite a wobble on many passages; yet his voice commands the stage and rises majestically in the ensembles. And then, Bulgarian Svetla Vassileva, who is not burned at the stake, as in “Maid”, but dies heroically in battle.
I Lombardi alla prima crociata (The Lombards on the First Crusade) was Verdi’s fourth opera and received its first performance at La Scala, Milan, in February 1843. The grandiloquent subject matter is fleshed-out with broad-brushed musical and dramatic effects and lavish choral scenes created a correspondingly impressive impact. A great success in Milan, it spread to the rest of Europe within a matter of only a few years.
As the release of the ‘Tutto Verdi’ series from the Teatro Regio progresses, one has begun to have fears that the later Verdi operas will fail to measure up to the standards that have been set on DVD by productions from international houses across the globe. The issues of the early and middle period Verdi works have been welcome, because these pieces are so rarely encountered in the opera house; but with Macbeth and Luisa Miller we are coming to operas that have been performed by major artists in major productions with superb orchestras and conductors.
Part of Tutto Verdi series 'I vespri siciliani' ('The Sicilian Vespers') is a five-act Italian opera originally written in French for the Paris Opéra and translated into Italian shortly after its premiere in June 1855. Under its original title, 'Les vêpres siciliennes', the libretto was prepared by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier from their work 'Le duc d'Albe', which was written in 1838 and offered to Halévy and Donizetti before Verdi agreed to set it to music in 1854. The story is loosely based on a historical event, the Sicilian Vespers of 1282, using material drawn from the medieval Sicilian tract 'Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia'.
Part of Tutto Verdi series - La Traviata (2007) Parma. 'La traviata' ('The Fallen Woman') is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on 'La dame aux Camélias' (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The opera was originally titled 'Violetta', after the main character. It was first performed on 6 March 1853 at the La Fenice opera house in Venice. Piave and Verdi wanted to follow Dumas in giving the opera a contemporary setting, but the authorities at La Fenice insisted that it be set in the past, "c. 1700". It was not until the 1880s that the composer and librettist's original wishes were carried out and "realistic" productions were staged.
Part of Tutto Verdi series - Stiffelio (2012) Parma. 'Stiffelio' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, from an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. The origin of this was the novel “Le pasteur d’hommes”, by Émile Souvestre, which was published in 1838. This was adapted into the French play 'Le pasteur, ou L'évangile et le foyer' by Émile Souvestre and Eugène Bourgeois. That was in turn translated into Italian by Gaetano Vestri as 'Stifellius'; this formed the basis of Piave's libretto.
Part of Tutto Verdi series - Otello (2008) Salzburg. 'Otello' is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play 'Othello'. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887.