Fabio Armiliato

The soprano Daniela Dessì died suddenly on 20th August 2016, aged 59. She was hailed by critics and colleagues as one of the finest voices the world of opera has ever known. Dynamic pays tribute to the great soprano with this recording, filmed just one year before her untimely death. Her performance of Giordano’s Fedora was one of the pinnacles of her stunning artistic career. In the famous aria O grandi occhi lucenti from Act One, she delivers a technically perfect and emotionally passionate performance worthy of a great star. The story takes place at the end of the 19th century, in St. Petersburg (Act One), Paris (Act Two) and Switzerland (Act Three).

This production from the historic Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova, Italy, stars the opera worlds power couple, Daniela Dessì and Fabio Armiliato, as lovers Tosca and Cavaradossi. A tragic tale of doomed love interlaced with the age-old themes of jealousy, lust and intrigue, has ensured Tosca its place in the top ten of opera favourites. The task of putting Tosca on the stage in a way that is credible and timeless is both straightforward and difficult. For the three main roles the unscrupulous police chief Vitellio Scarpia and the painter Mario Cavaradossi, who provide a framework for Floria Tosca, a famous singer, all you need is star performers of the required virtuosity, although they do need to display a certain enjoyment in performing something one has never been able to take for granted in music theatre.

The singing and musicianship here is of a high standard and Zanetti conducts with verve…Certain aspects of Pier Luigi Pizzi’s production are good while others are somewhat disappointing. (MusicWeb International)

Zandonai’s most popular creation “Francesca da Rimini” was commemorated in Macerata, the provincial capital of the northern Italian region of Marche, in 2004. Massimo Gasparon (former assistant to the celebrated scenographer Pier Luigi Pizzi) was responsible for the direction, set and costumes of this production for the Sferisterio Opera Festival. With its all-star cast including Daniela Dessì and Fabio Armiliato as the passionate lovers (the singers are regarded as two of the leading interpreters of Italian soprano and tenor roles respectively, both hail from Genoa and are in fact also real-life partners) and the baritone Alberto Mastromarino as the ideal “villain”, the production follows in a long line of significant post-war performances of Francesca da Rimini. The Sferisterio – a 4,500-seat arena originally used as a venue for the traditional ballgame gioco del bracciale (a game played with spiked arm protectors and a heavy wooden ball) – was built between 1819 and 1829; since 1921 it has been home to the annual opera festival held in late July/early August. As has come to be associated with staged events in Verona, the representative open-air nature of the performance turns this lavishly costumed production in a historic setting into something out of the ordinary.