80° Banda Musicale Giuseppe Verdi

Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler already enjoyed a worldwide legendary standing during his lifetime - he was considered the German conductor and performances were greeted with rapturous applause. Today, more than 50 years after his death, Wilhelm Furtwangler is still an icon and his work has become an integral part ofthe music scene.

In the original St. Petersburg version of 1862. Giuseppe Verdi’s drama of love and destiny in times of war remains one of the best–known operas by this Italian master. In the „Milan version“ of 1867, it has become an essential part of the repertoire of great opera houses, both in Europe and further afield. This DVD video recording, however, is quite distinct from the numerous other recordings currently available: the conductor Valery Gergiev has used the rarely–heard original 1862 version, composed for St. Petersburg, and containing wonderfully dramatic scenes and arias later deleted from the „Milan version“. And furthermore, the stage–set for this 1998 live recording in the Marinisiky Theatre recreates the original designs produced by Andreas Roller for the St. Petersburg premiere over 130 years ago.

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.

Following Andrea Bocelli’s recent smash-hit release “Cinema”, the award-winning, top-selling, international tenor returns to his first love, singing opera. One of the world’s best-loved operas, AIDA has been performed over 1,100 times at New York’s Metropolitan Opera alone.

In his 2007 production for the Maggio Musicale in Florence, French opera director Nicolas Joël – named as the next director of the Opéra de Paris from 2009 – presented his reading of Giuseppe Verdi’s La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny). An adventure story and a tale of grim pursuit and unrelenting misfortune, of faith, renunciation and - fi nally - death and forgiveness, Verdi’s La forza del destino is, like an operatic road movie, also a portrait gallery of the different places and curious people the main players meet along their way.

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century. His works are frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world and, transcending the boundaries of the genre, some of his themes have long since taken root in popular culture…