Pier Luigi Pizzi
At death’s door, a beloved king is doomed unless someone takes his place. So then his wife resolves to sacrifice herself to save him. Christoph Willibald Gluck composed his reform opera Alceste not once, but twice. In La Fenice’s production of the lesser-known original Italian version, director Pier Luigi Pizzi strips the action down to the bare emotional drama of Alceste’s sacrifice.
Seeking revenge for her sister’s suicide, Violanta vows to have her seducer killed. As hatred turns to love, can they still escape the deadly fate she has plotted herself? Set during the carnival in Venice, Violanta is Korngold’s second opera, composed at the tender age of 17. This production marks Violanta’s Italian premiere over a hundred years after its creation, contributing to its well-deserved rediscovery.
A staging of Britten's opera filmed at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in June 2008.
Part of Tutto Verdi series - Un giorno di regno (2010) Parma. 'Un giorno di regno, ossia il finto Stanislao' ('A One-Day Reign, or The Pretend Stanislaus', but often translated into English as 'King for a Day') is an operatic melodramma giocoso in two acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto written in 1818 by Felice Romani. Originally written for the Bohemian composer Adalbert Gyrowetz, the libretto was based on the play 'Le faux Stanislas' written by the Frenchman Alexandre Vincent Pineu-Duval in 1808.
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'.
"Die tote Stadt" is a psychologically layered drama with Hitchcock-like features, about Paul who, after the loss of his beloved Marie, slowly but surely becomes entangled in a dream world of obsessions and delusions. This impressive opera is a passionate as well as a surrealistic plea for mourning. "He who cannot live with death has no life."
Meyerbeer opera with Emmanuel Villaume conducting the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro La Fenice di Venezia directed by Pier Lui.
American soprano Deborah Voigt takes the lead role in this production of Ponchielli's opera recorded live at Barcelona's Gran Teatre Del Liceu in 2005. With stage direction by Pier Luigi Pizzi, performers incude Elisabetta Fiorillo, Carlo Colombara, Ewa Podles and Carlo Guelfi, while Daniele Callegari conducts the Orchestra and Chorus.
Maometto II (or Maometto secondo) is an 1820 opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Cesare della Valle. Set in the 1470s during a time of war between the Turks and Venetians, the work was commissioned by the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. Della Valle based his libretto on his earlier play Anna Erizo. The name of the title character, Maometto II, refers to the real-life Ottoman Sultan and conqueror of Constantinople Mehmed II, who lived from 1432 to 1481.
Carl Maria von Weber's romantic opera staged at Teatro Lirico di Cagliari in 2002. Gérard Korsten leads the Orchestra and Chorus, with performances by Elena Prokina, Jolana Fogasova and Yikun Chung.
Live peformance from the Sferisterio Opera Festival, August 2004. Our edition has an Italian cast of exceptional quality, in which stand out the amazing voice of Desirée Rancatore, the extraordinary artistry of Ruggiero Raimondi and the fascinating direction of Pier Luigi Pizzi, one of today's most creative directors. Interesting overview here: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2006/08/offenbach_les_c.php
Discover this rare Verdian jewel! Aroldo—one of the composer’s least performed works—premiered in 1857 in Rimini, Italy. The work was created in response to the censorship of Verdi’s 1849 Stiffelio, whose tale of a protestant pastor publicly pardonning an adulterer and his wife proved too scandalous for 19th-century Italian society. In creating Aroldo, Verdi’s librettist and collaborator Francesco Maria Piave transposed Stiffelio’s story and characters to the more distant setting of Great Britain at time of the Crusades, and the composer took advantage of this new version to add a fourth act to the opera, and to rewrite part of the first act as well as a few arias.
Among the greatest operas in Richard Strauss's oeuvre, "Der Rosenkavalier (The Cavalier of the Rose)" spins the tale of the Marschallin (Elizabeth Whitehouse), a dowager struggling with old age. Making the transition more difficult is Octavian (Ildiko Komlosi), a lover many years her junior. This 1997 Palermo production, under the baton of maestro Pier Luigi Pizzi, co-stars Daniel Lewis Williams as Baron Ochs, the Marschallin's obnoxious cousin.
Puccini’s heartbreaking story of young love in the garrets of Belle Epoque Paris has attracted many famous singers through the years. But with James Levine at the helm and the starry duo of Luciano Pavarotti and Renata Scotto as Rodolfo and Mimi, every bit of emotion in the score pours across the footlights and seduces the audience. In this case, the audience was in the millions since this was the very first in the “Live from the Met” series of telecasts. The evocative production is by Fabrizio Melano, designed by Pier Luigi Pizzi.
Alice, a young translator, finds the real world slowly merging with her recurring nightmares as she tries to solve the puzzle of her recent memory loss. A postcard leads her to the island of Garma where the locals seems to know her. Is she who she thinks she is? And what significance does her dream of an astronaut abandoned on the moon have?
Criminal mastermind 'The Fox' sets up a phony film production and masquerades as it's director as part of a plan to smuggle a stolen gold shipment into Italy.
In 17th-century Rome, a young man in a choir of castrati falls for the beautiful wife of a powerful aristocrat.
