Verdi: Simon Boccanegra
Giuseppe Verdi's one prologue, three act opera featuring libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and Arrigo Boito is performed before a live audience at Florence's Teatro Comunale in this release featuring the music of the Orchestra and Chorus of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under conductor Claudio Abbado, and starring Carlo Guelfi, Julian Konstantinov, and Karita Mattila.
Casts & Crew
Carlo Guelfi
Julian Konstantinov
Karita Mattila
Vincenzo La Scola
Lucio Gallo
Claudio Abbado
Also Directed by Carlo Battistoni
This was Domingo's last set of performances as Otello in La Scala. In spite of his relatively advanced age, he is still in excellent form, both vocally and in terms of stage presence. Nucci is also his usual self, delivering a performance of very high standard. Barbara Frittoli is an excellent Desdemona, in good voice and gives a very moving performance. Muti conducts with great emotion and tight accuracy, conveying the full orchestral drama of the score.
Live from Teatro alla Scala 1987.
Gaul has been conquered by the Romans. Oroveso, the Arch-Druid longs to lead a Gallic rebellion against the colonial forces. He and all the others wait for the signal to be given by his daughter, the Druid High Priestess Norma. But Norma has fallen in love with the Roman Proconsul, Pollione, and given birth to two children. They have been brought up in secrecy by her confidante Clotilde. Norma still loves Pollione but he has fallen in love with a novice priestess, Adalgisa.
Conducted by Riccardo Muti, the master of the Scala in Milan for twenty years, the Verdian melodrama unfolds before our eyes. This Cavani's approach is ageless and excellence is pre-eminent: to start with, the role of Riccardo is played by the wonderful Salvatore Licitra. As for Maria Guleghina, she plays an exceptionally good Amelia. Riccardo Muti proves once again what a wonderful Verdian he is.
Live from La Scala Wednesday 10 December 2003
Live from La Scala December 7th 1997
Also Directed by Peter Stein
One of the lesser known works by Giuseppe Verdi, Simon Boccanegra is regarded by most opera lovers as one of his finest. The action takes place in the 14th century and deals with the political and personal rivalry between the corsair Simon Boccanegra, who has been elected Doge of Genoa with the help of the plebeian vote, and the local nobleman, Jacopo Fiesco. Arthaus presents a visually alert, musically sensitive and disturbingly coherent (Der Standard) production of the piece on DVD. The staging was directed by one of the giants of the European theatre, Peter Stein. His fondness for atmospherically dense spaces in which the characters can fully develop is particularly well brought out in his Vienna production, not least because he had at his disposal two remarkable singing actors for the principal male roles, Thomas Hampson and Ferruccio Furlanetto.
Any performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida at La Scala, Milan, is guaranteed to be an experience – but, when it’s a new production, it becomes a major event, especially given the theatre’s notoriously critical audience. Legendary stage director Peter Stein succeeds in delivering a lucid production acclaimed in equal measure by the press and public: “a perfect coup de théâtre” (Giornale della musica). A “stellar cast” (La Stampa) contributes to the production’s success under the musical direction of Verdi specialist Zubin Mehta, who leads the orchestra in a “gorgeously colourful performance”, while “the entire ensemble is brilliant in its portrayal of the characters” (Die Presse).
Verdi wrote this five act opera with a French Libretto for the Paris opera. Premiere 1867. Then there are three versions of this opera, the French 1867 version, the revised Italian four Act Don Carlo 1884, plus the Modena version 1886. This version is the 1884 version with Act One reinstated, as well as the original beginning of Act 2. To complicate matters the French opera was simply translated into Italian, and then the changes were made. There is an even newer edition completed in 1980 by Ricordi, and others floating around as well.
Accompanied by a luxurious team of professionals, consisting of the renowned stage director Peter Stein, his stage designer Ferdinand Wöger and conductor Ádám Fischer, Teatro alla Scala presents with Mozarts Zauberflöte a production where orchestra, chorus, soloists as well as outfitters all consisted of students of the Academia Teatro alla Scala, the educational institution aimed to train the young talents, founded by the Teatro alla Scala in 2001. The result was more than stunning and an instant success with the audience of the ten sold out performances at La Scala, which is famous for its more than critical loggionisti. According to Die Presse, Fischer gets the best out of the Academy Orchestra with delicate execution and humane phrasing while the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung praises Fatma Said as "Pamina" and Yasmin Özkan as "Queen of the Night".
Fierrabras of 1823 is the last of Franz Schubert’s stage works. Rarely performed to this day, this heroic-romantic opera has now been staged for the first time ever at the Salzburg Festival by famous director Peter Stein. Based on an old French 12th-century epic, the plot depicts the military conflict between Christians and Moors at the time of Charlemagne – as a backdrop to stories of love and friendship that prove to be stronger than war and hatred of otherness. The strong cast includes the “marvellously expressive miracle Dorothea Röschmann” (Die Zeit) and “Michael Schade, who exudes his exceptional tenor in Fierrabras’s heroic arias” (Der neue Merker). Under the energetic baton of lngo Metzmacher, the Vienna Philharmonic unfold “the melos, the poetry, the sweetness and the dramatic force of Schubert’s highly refined and atmospheric sound worlds” (Kleine Zeitung) in highly romantic fashion.